Robert Lindsay: ‘I only agreed to My Family for the money – I was mid-breakup’

It’s one o’clock at the Hampstead Theatre in London, and the cast of Springwood are deep in rehearsals. A new play by the Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Nelson, Springwood is set in 1939, and revolves around a picnic hosted by US President Franklin D Roosevelt for King George VI and his family. The King is hoping to improve the “special relationship” between the UK and US as the world inches ever closer towards war.

The gathered actors – led by Robert Lindsay, who stars as FDR – are right now running through a scene in which the King is being introduced to an emerging US delicacy known as “hot dogs”.

“How do you eat a hot dog?” wonders the future Queen Elizabeth.

“I believe with your hands,” the King tells her, uncertainly.

During a break, Lindsay is brought a pair of pince-nez glasses, the kind FDR wore. He perches them on the end of his nose, then reaches for a copy of What’s on TV magazine. “They work!” Lindsay exclaims. “I can read!”