When she showed up at her first day of rehearsal for The Crucible, a big star in a starry cast, Sophie Okonedo wore a jumper that might most kindly be described as “homely”. Smudgy dark green in colour, loose-fitting, shapeless. The sort you’d sling on to do a bit of gardening. (She confesses to missing her vegetable patch whenever she’s away from home.) Ivo van Hove, the hit Belgian director of A View from the Bridge in London and New York, now bringing another Arthur Miller classic to Broadway, was rather taken with it.
“Every time Costume tried to put another jumper on me, he’d say” — she adopts her director’s deep, sonorous voice — “‘Where’s that jumper she wore on the first day?’” She