Find National Theatre boss Rufus Norris by the river at low tide or with the pelicans in St James's Park

Home is… A flat in Peckham Rye that I share with my better half Tanya [Ronder] and our two cats.

- 

We downsized recently after our two boys flew the coop. It’s great; calm and quiet. It’s opposite where William Blake saw his angels.

Where was your first flat in the capital? It was a squat near the Oval in 1987, when I was at drama school, and I left around 1991. I absolutely loved it. There were two of us, well, it fluctuated between two and eight. At one time we came home and some other squatters had broken in via the ceiling. We came in and the whole ceiling was down, and we found a note from them saying, “Sorry, we thought it was empty.”

What was your first job in London? I was a painter and decorator for the Hammersmith and Fulham Methodist Church, which I came to by accident. I was a trained painter and decorator in the Midlands for a few years before I went to drama school, and the quality of painting and decorating in London those days — I can’t speak for now — was terrible, so I was never short of work. I can still do it, but only do it at home these days.

Where would you recommend for a first date? A walk through the parks: St James’s Park, Green Park, Hyde Park. It’s lovely, beautiful… nature, pelicans. Also, when you’re walking you talk more freely as you don’t have to look at each other. If it’s not going well, you can head in different directions, and if it does there are plenty of places to divert to.