Joyce Carey

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

Miss Kelly, both your mother and father were in the theatre, of course. Yes.

Presenter0:12

Dame Lillian Braithwaite and Gerald Lawrence. That's right. So did you accept it as a foregone conclusion that you would be an actress?

Joyce Carey0:20

Well, I did, but uh my mother didn't entirely.

Presenter0:24

Yeah.

Joyce Carey0:25

Well, she didn't want me to to go on the stage.

Joyce Carey0:28

But I was absolutely determined to, and had a very sympathetic schoolmistress who I think said a good word for me at the right time and so my mother was always wonderful about anything very important.

Joyce Carey0:44

Said, all right, but you must go to a dramatic school. I couldn't wait, of course. And I studied with Kate Raw.

Joyce Carey0:53

And then um Masen Lang.

Joyce Carey0:56

um, kindly offered me a tiny little part in a revival of mister Woo, which my mother was playing in, would have been known as a flapper in those days. I trailed round after her for a couple of acts and was thrilled.

Presenter1:11

Yeah.

Joyce Carey1:12

and got two pounds a week.

Presenter1:15

Your mother was a a wonderfully witty but rather imperious lady. Did you find her at all daunting to work with? Were you very nervous?

Joyce Carey1:23

Oh no, she was very kind to me.

Joyce Carey1:25

Very uh nice and I think a little anxious, you know, but it was all right.

Presenter1:29

If closed

Presenter1:31

Yeah.

Presenter1:32

Then you were in Sir George Alexander's company at the Saint James's Theatre. That's right, yes. How do you remember that company and Sir George?

Joyce Carey1:41

Oh, it was marvellous theatre to be in.

Joyce Carey1:45

because it was run so beautifully. Stage hands had white coats and rubber shoes, and we all had a very good time, and he was the most charming and delightful gentleman.

Presenter1:58

Going on down the list, I see you were in that famous American comedy, Nothing But the Truth.

Joyce Carey2:04

Well, I came in at the tail end of that, when it was nearly finishing its London run, but it was a great piece of luck for me, because A. Matthews was in it, and I played the girl opposite him.

Joyce Carey2:19

And

Joyce Carey2:20

On my questions.

Joyce Carey2:24

His answers got the laughs.

Joyce Carey2:27

Now you have to know the rudiments of comedy if you're going to play in that sort of play, and who better to teach one than A. E. Matthews, who was extremely kind, very patient.

Joyce Carey2:41

It's plain to me that if they didn't hear what I said they wouldn't laugh at what he said and if he thought they hadn't heard, he just said Say it again, Kiddie.

Presenter2:51

Yeah.

Joyce Carey2:51

Which I did.

Presenter2:53

Now the summer season at Stratford-on-Avon and I noticed that

Presenter2:58

In that year, nineteen nineteen, the season didn't start until August. Now, of course, they're talking of running the season fifty-two weeks in the year.

Joyce Carey3:04

Yes, this was I think a mere eight to ten weeks season.

Presenter3:10

Was that a

Joyce Carey3:10

We rehearsed for six weeks, I think, and played for eight or ten.

Presenter3:15

Yes.

Presenter3:16

What parts did you play?

Joyce Carey3:18

I played Perdita, Miranda.

Joyce Carey3:22

Anne Page, Titania, and Juliet. Of course Juliet was the prize.

Presenter3:29

Wait.

Joyce Carey3:29

Uh

Presenter3:29

At a number of

Joyce Carey3:29

Number of

Presenter3:30

Piazza and America.

Joyce Carey3:31

Yes, I did.

Joyce Carey3:33

I went over in Noel Card's play Easy Virtue, and my mother was there at the time playing in the vortex, so I had a very happy introduction to New York.

Presenter3:44

Yes. And these these of course were were were the great days of Broadway in the late twenties or early thirties.

Joyce Carey3:49

It was wonderful, and the most wonderful time of music, too.

Joyce Carey3:56

Marvellous, marvellous era of light music. You see all the great ones, Coldwater, Richard Rogers, Gershwin, Kern. You couldn't hear a bad band. It was simply wonderful. Of course, one didn't quite realize what a great time it was, just enjoyed it. And then the classical music was so wonderful too.

Joyce Carey4:22

because Toscanini used to conduct at least one concert a week at Carnegie, and often two, all through the winter season, and the Met gave matinees on Tuesday and Friday, which was perfect for actors.

Presenter4:37

In nineteen thirty four there was a successful play called Sweet Aloes which played in London.

Presenter4:44

And in New York, and was made into a Hollywood film, and it was by an unknown playwright called Jay Mallory. Now, Jay Mallory was you.

Joyce Carey4:52

Yes, it was thought better not to be by a youngish actress at the time, so I had an aunt de plume.

Presenter5:00

Yes. And you've written other plays since then, of course.

Joyce Carey5:03

Well, I wrote another one that was done and was not successful.

Joyce Carey5:08

and I felt very badly and very guilty about it because it had a splendid production and I knew it was the fault of the play.

Joyce Carey5:17

Which rather depressed me. I have written other players, you know.

Presenter5:19

Man,

Presenter5:21

You wrote of a play about Keats because

Joyce Carey5:22

Probably.

Presenter5:24

Noel Card describes in one of his books how you both sat on a beach in Wales and you wrote about Keats and he wrote Blythe Spit.

Joyce Carey5:32

Yes, that's right. He was writing this marvellous play which came right off hot off the typewriter, and I was pounding away upstairs. And one day I finished a bit early what I was doing, went out for a walk.

Joyce Carey5:46

And when I came back there was a frantic author.

Joyce Carey5:50

saying, Where have you been? Why did you have to go away? What had happened was his secretary had telephoned from London, and he'd had to walk a couple of hundred yards to the hotel.

Joyce Carey6:01

was We were in a little house, and when he got there they'd been cut off, he came back and the same thing happened over again. And what is quite interesting, the irritation that he was feeling that afternoon permeates that scene.

Joyce Carey6:17

Because later, when I played Ruth afterwards in Blive Spirit.

Joyce Carey6:22

I used to wonder why I always felt so furiously angry all during that scene, much more than it needed, and I'm sure it was the irritation of that afternoon reacting on him what he was writing.

Presenter6:34

What a fascinating story.

Joyce Carey6:36

Wasn't the best scene in the play by any means.

Presenter6:40

You did a lot of Enso work during the war, didn't you?

Joyce Carey6:42

Uh yes, I did quite a few answer tours. I did one with John Gilgood and B. Lily, and then um I did several with uh Blithe Spirit, which went wonderfully with the tropes, thank heavens.

Presenter6:58

Did you go overseas?

Joyce Carey7:00

No, all my friends used to go to such fascinating places like Italy or the Middle East or something. Now, just toolbonding.

Presenter7:08

And you did a tour with Nerl Card.

Joyce Carey7:11

Oh, we did a marvellous job.

Joyce Carey7:13

Three players, happy breed, um, present laughter and blithe spirit, but also it was the war and it wasn't very comfortable and he was so marvellous because the worse things were the funnier he got.

Joyce Carey7:27

which is of always great help.

Presenter7:29

Yes. You were in so many of his plays, and in his films too.

Joyce Carey7:34

Well, in which we serve, I played the petty officer's wife and um of course the lady behind the station bar in Brief Encounter.

Presenter7:43

Of course. And television. You've done a lot of television.

Joyce Carey7:46

Yes, I've done quite a lot of television. I never feel I've got a grasp of it, a proper grasp.

Presenter7:54

Who have

Joyce Carey7:54

I think it's a mixture of

Presenter7:55

Yeah.

Joyce Carey7:57

of you know, the two mediums.

Joyce Carey8:00

stage and screen and

Presenter8:02

You've been in father, dear father.

Joyce Carey8:04

I'm most grateful to Father Deer Fall. It's been a great, great help to me.

Joyce Carey8:09

That television with an audience is really very alarming because you have divided loyalty.

Joyce Carey8:16

the microphone and there are those shadowy figures.

Joyce Carey8:20

And it leads to trying to reach them and shouting and making faces.

Presenter8:24

Yeah.

Presenter8:25

Any particular part, Miss Gary, that you still want to play very much that you're hoping will turn up?

Joyce Carey8:30

Well, frankly, Mr Plumley, I won't play a good

Presenter8:34

Part

Presenter8:35

Any good part.

Joyce Carey8:37

Yeah.