‘It’s a common complaint’: Even at lunch, Neil Armfield can’t help but direct things

Neil Armfield always brings a cloth napkin to lunch – just in case the restaurant doesn’t provide real linen.The one he produces today (unnecessary as it turns out: Olympus is most definitely a real linen sort of place) has clearly been liberated from Qantas Business Class. (Sitting in front of Alan Joyce at the theatre one evening, Armfield says he once confessed his petty larceny to the former Qantas boss who was apparently unconcerned. “I think he had bigger things to worry about,” says Armfield.)This delightful eccentricity is a small but telling detail. Armfield, one of the best regarded directors of his generation, can’t help but concern himself with how things look and how they might work better. At various stages he is gently directing lunch, the crockery and the Herald’s photograp