"The first big break was winning a scholarship to go to Cambridge University. I was very lucky, because my parents couldn't have afforded a university education for me. Without a scholarship I couldn't possibly have gone"
About this Quote
Meritocracy always sounds cleanest when it’s told as a personal anecdote, and Trevor Nunn leans into that clarity with a director’s instinct for origin stories. The “first big break” isn’t framed as raw talent finally being noticed; it’s access arriving like a plot device. “Winning a scholarship” sits where many creative legends place destiny or genius. Nunn instead credits a gate-opening mechanism that was never guaranteed to swing his way.
The repeated emphasis on luck is doing quiet cultural work. “Very lucky” and “couldn’t possibly” undercut any romance about pluck alone. It’s gratitude, yes, but also a subtle indictment: the system is arranged so that even a future major figure in British theatre can be one form away from not happening. He’s not performing false humility; he’s mapping the contingency that hides beneath so many polished careers.
Cambridge matters here as more than a campus. For British arts and public life, it’s a credentialing machine, a network, a stamp that travels. By naming it plainly, Nunn acknowledges that institutions don’t just educate; they confer legitimacy, connections, and permission to be taken seriously. The line about his parents’ means brings class back into the frame, refusing the tidy narrative where culture is “open” to talent.
The intent feels less like confession than calibration: a reminder that behind celebrated careers sits an infrastructure of funding, selection, and chance. The subtext: invest in scholarships, because “breaks” aren’t mystical. They’re engineered.
The repeated emphasis on luck is doing quiet cultural work. “Very lucky” and “couldn’t possibly” undercut any romance about pluck alone. It’s gratitude, yes, but also a subtle indictment: the system is arranged so that even a future major figure in British theatre can be one form away from not happening. He’s not performing false humility; he’s mapping the contingency that hides beneath so many polished careers.
Cambridge matters here as more than a campus. For British arts and public life, it’s a credentialing machine, a network, a stamp that travels. By naming it plainly, Nunn acknowledges that institutions don’t just educate; they confer legitimacy, connections, and permission to be taken seriously. The line about his parents’ means brings class back into the frame, refusing the tidy narrative where culture is “open” to talent.
The intent feels less like confession than calibration: a reminder that behind celebrated careers sits an infrastructure of funding, selection, and chance. The subtext: invest in scholarships, because “breaks” aren’t mystical. They’re engineered.
Quote Details
| Topic | Student |
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