Does Mendes hate Daldry, asks Donald Clarke

For the past week I have had an imaginary voice in my head. It sounds exactly like Cartman, the ball of sarcastic venom from South Park, but, oddly, it emerges from the mouth of respected director Stephen Daldry.

“Oh hellooo, is that Sam Mendes?” the voice says. “Hi, Sam. It’s Stephen. I just called to say ‘well done’ on those Oscar nominations for best picture and best director. And say hellooo to Kate, your lovely wife. It must be lovely that she got the nod for being in one of your lovely, lovely films. Lovely!” Stephen Cartman then ranks up the sarcasm a notch further as he pretends to realise his mistake.

"Oh but, no. Hang on. It was my filmthat got all the big nominations, wasn't it? What an embarrassing error."

Now, I have no idea if Sam Mendes, director of Revolutionary Road, and Stephen Daldry, helmsman of The Reader, are as spiteful, childish and petty as I am, but, when the Oscar nominations were announced last week, they must, however briefly, have pondered the imaginary ties that bind them together.

Sam (43) and Steve (47) are both middle-class boys who first achieved fame directing for distinguished English theatre companies. Mendes is, it is true, a bit posher than the older man – he grew up in Berkshire and was educated at Oxford, whereas Steve, the son of a bank manager, attended the University of Sheffield – but, for the past 20 years, they seem to have been in continuous accidental competition. Mendes is currently breathing Daldry’s dust.

In 1992, Mendes took over the running of the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden and began plotting successful revivals of Cabaret and The Glass Menagerie. In the same year, a mile or two to the south, Daldry became artistic director of the Royal Court and set to work developing new writing. You couldn’t put a cigarette paper between them at this stage.

Then, in 1999, Sam directed American Beauty, won the Oscar for Best Birector and (let's pretend) made a few of his own Cartman calls to Daldry. Stephen caught up a little the following year when his Billy Elliotreceived several major Oscar nominations, but the dancing flick didn't actually bring home any of the blighters. At this point, the younger, cooler director still looked like the boss of his spectacled, less starry colleague.

The wheel spins. Revolutionary Roadis Mendes's fourth film ( Road to Perditionand Jarheadcame in between) and he has yet to receive another Best Director nod. In the meantime, Daldry won for The Hours and he has now achieved the singular feat of being nominated for each of his first three films. To rub salt in a seeping lesion, Kate Winslet, Mendes's wife, was shunned for Revolutionary Road, but got the nod for The Reader.

I hear a voice. It’s a mix of Mendes and Kyle from South Park.

“Wrong number, Mr Daldry. No Mendes here.” I hear a click and bitter weeping.

dclarke@irishtimes.com