Kevin Spacey

London, Sept. 29 (Reuters): Hollywood star Kevin Spacey yesterday launched his new creative career at The Old Vic, one of Britain?s most famous theatres, and audiences were under strict orders to behave.

The dual Oscar winner, who first fell in love with the historic theatre as a 7-year-old boy visiting Britain, opened his tenure at the Old Vic by directing Cloaca by Dutch playwright Maria Goos.

Spacey has won all the headlines in advance for telling audiences to switch off their mobile phones at the theatre, made famous by Laurence Olivier, Peter ?Toole and Richard Burton.

?It?s a phone-free zone,? he said of the Old Vic. ?My feeling is, if people don?t know how to behave, they shouldn?t come.? He has also confessed to being enraged by ?people opening candy bars thinking if they open it slowly, it will be less annoying than if they open it fast.?

But on opening night at one of London?s greatest theatrical landmarks, Spacey was all smiles, telling BBC Television ?we could not have hoped for a better launch.?

Asked why he had chosen the relatively obscure Dutch play to launch his career as Old Vic artistic director, he said: ?I think it is going to be a play people recognise themselves in no matter what country they come from because it is about friendship. We all have friends.?

Spacey, who won Oscars for his roles in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, was happy for Hollywood glamour to rub off on the Old Vic.

?If it is at all useful that I have had success in films, then I hope it is useful in the sense that I have become a magnet for people being interested in coming to the theatre,? he said.

Spacey will himself be appearing in two plays later in the season and has already pulled off one intriguing casting coup.

Ian McKellen, who played the wizard Gandalf in the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, will appear on stage at Christmas as a gruff pantomime dame.

He will play Widow Twanky in December in a reworking of the classic pantomime story of Aladdin which is taken from the Arabian Nights tales.

Spacey hopes to take Old Vic productions to the US but has stressed that his film career is far from over.

?In no way should this decision be viewed as an abandonment of my own country,? he said on taking up the job.