Richard Eyre on suffering the New York heat for art's sake I'm in New York in August. It's fashionable to say that no one who is anyone is in the city until the beginning of September - Labor Day. It's the heat, my dear, the heat. Labor Day marks the end of summer, after which, apparently, it used to be considered a terrible social solecism for a chap to wear a seersucker suit. I'm unaware of such social niceties, only of the melting tarmac, empty restaurants and the air of serious life suspended. I'm here for a week of technical rehearsals for Massenet's Werther at the Metropolitan Opera, although the actual rehearsals with singers and orchestra don't begin until January. It's a little like being in a school during the holidays. There's a lot of talk about next term (season), the curriculum (repertoire), the pupils (singers) and the staff (conductors) - "Oh, she's never going to show up... he's a monster... she can't sing it... he's always flat... oh, she's a nightmare..." And so on. No names, I'm afraid. I've been coming to New York off and on for nearly 40 years. I used to be in love with the exhilarating vertical landscape but now the skyline is crowded with buildings that, at best, are pastiches of Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson and, at worst (more common) characterless slabs of featureless vulgarity. The city has become homogenous: the Donald has trumped. Back in London I discover that - at least in my house - the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice is being celebrated. My wife, Sue Birtwistle, was the producer of the much-lauded series starring Colin Firth. She reminds me that she had a fight to cast Colin as Mr Darcy in the face of the opposition of BBC executives who said he was "not sexy." It's pleasant to imagine them squirming in shame when Mr Darcy's wet shirt was voted the sexiest moment ever in British television. The adaptor of the series, Andrew Davies, originally wanted Mr Darcy to emerge fully naked from the lake and it was my wife's insistence that a wet shirt was sexier than the full, as it were, darcy. Which causes me to reflect that she's never demanded that I get into the shower in my shirt and stride towards her in a manly fashion. Perhaps, like someone I overheard in Hyde Park when the giant Mr Darcy statue rose from the waters of the Serpentine, she thinks I look like Cliff Richard.