Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Stage and screen actress, best known for her breakthrough role in the play Love on the Dole.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21Favourite
I met the Arthur Rubinstein. Some years ago I was in New York ... and it was New Year's Eve, and I was invited to a party. and I was feeling extremely homesick and very lonely. And ... I was introduced to um mister Rubinstein ... and he brought his charming wife, and they both put their arms round me as though I were some foundling at this very smart New York party.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:12As a child, did you see a lot of theatre?
No, really very little. But I always knew I wanted to go into the theatre. I came of an untheatrical family.
Presenter asks
1:44How long did you stay there [at the Rusholme Repertory Theatre]?
I think I was there ooh, for over two years. And then I went back to play Love on the Dole, which was the beginning of what is known as success.
Presenter asks
4:47What did you play there [at the Old Vic]?
Oh, now what did I play? Not very successfully. Uh Hamani. You know that old statue. Winter Stay on ... Then I rather enjoyed Amelia. Yes, I wore a black wig for Amelia and then came very happily to Tyron Guthrie's production of Troilus and Cressida. playing a rather surprising Helen of Troy.
Presenter asks
7:59What have you been doing just recently?
Now, what have I been doing? I've just finished touring Ghosts, misses Alving.
“I went to the m what was known as the Rusham Rep, Repertory Theatre, which was a sort of inner suburb of Manchester. And it being paid thirty shillings a week, I was a sort of assistant stage manager. I worked long hours, ten in the morning.”
“We were doing four plays and I was in those two rather large parts, and so I managed them both with six rehearsals and one dress rehearsal, which is something you do when you're very young and very brave.”
“I really do enjoy working my way through those long, slow involved and convolvulated uh stories and sentences. Sometimes you have to read a sentence three or four times, but once you've got it you feel as it couldn't be put in any other way.”