which I had always liked since the days I had a flat near there.
Trevor Nunn had given us a lovely advance wedding present by casting Michael and me in his next production for the RSC at the Aldwych, Dion Boucicault’s London Assurance . Trevor had come to meet the company at the airport when we returned from Australia, and saw Michael and me coming off together, which is why he cast us as the young lovers. The play had been unjustly neglected for years, and we all enjoyed ourselves hugely. Ronald Eyre directed it, and he sent me a note beforehand, saying, ‘Do remember that Grace Harkaway is the sort of girl who would send valentines to herself, then fall over with the joy of it when the card arrived from herself.’ That was a good note.
Michael was the young man who wins my hand, and Donald Sinden played his father, Sir Harcourt Courtly, as an elderly roué, heavily made-up like the outrageously camp actor Michael MacLiammoir. I had a long speech to Donald that got murmurs of laughter, turning to a kind of expectant buzz, and then an enormous burst of laughter. I used not to look at Donald too much during it, because Grace was off on a great flight of fancy, and I thought it was so wonderful the way the speech was going. It was only later that I glanced at Donald and saw that, as my speech got more flowery and more over the top, he very gradually looked out towards the audience, and pursed his red lipsticked mouth, with his eyebrow going up and down. It used to bring the house down, and I realised it wasn’t my speech at all, it was Donald’s reaction.
The production was such a hit that it ran for two seasons. It was huge fun, we got great belters of laughs from it, the audiences loved it – apart from the broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who left before the end. But the grimmest audience was the night the Queen came with Edward Heath, then Prime Minister. It wasn’t her fault, it was just that every time there was a line saying, ‘Oh, the Queen’s gone mad again’, everyone looked at her for a reaction.
All the family were in this production; in addition to Michael and myself there was my brother Jeff and, for six months, my daughter Finty, as I was pregnant for most of the run. I had a lovely friend in Nottingham called Brian Smedley, who was a judge, and he had asked me to marry him. I had told him, ‘I’ll have to think about it, Brian.’ But I never got in touch with him, and the next time I saw him I was about five months pregnant. He just put his head round the door of my dressing room and said, ‘I take it the answer’s no?’ I was six months pregnant when I left the production in the last week. In the first scene Janet Whiteside had to say to me, ‘Do you feel nothing stirring?’ That got the biggest laugh.
After the last performance the cast gave me a huge Paddington Bear as a leaving gift for the baby; Grace Kelly was in the audience that night and Donald Sinden asked her to present it to me.
6
Happy families
1970-1975
THE POPULARITY OF LONDON ASSURANCE ensured that it stayed in the RSC repertoire for longer than most productions. During this time I also did four markedly different plays. The first of these was Major Barbara , directed by Clifford Williams, who specialised in plays by Bernard Shaw. I had played Barbara on television eight years earlier, with Brewster Mason as Undershaft, and luckily he was also playing the same part again. He was a boyfriend of mine for a short while, and he used to take me to a little club near the Comedy Theatre, where I met several members of the Crazy Gang – Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox, and Monsewer Eddie Gray – and we all used to play the bluffer’s game Spoof; that was good fun. In addition to Brewster, the cast included old friends Richard Pasco, Roger Rees and Elizabeth Spriggs.
The Merchant of Venice was much less fun. I loathe the play, I think it is terrible, everyone behaves so frightfully badly. Who cares about anybody in it? My instinct
Trevor Nunn had given us a lovely advance wedding present by casting Michael and me in his next production for the RSC at the Aldwych, Dion Boucicault’s London Assurance . Trevor had come to meet the company at the airport when we returned from Australia, and saw Michael and me coming off together, which is why he cast us as the young lovers. The play had been unjustly neglected for years, and we all enjoyed ourselves hugely. Ronald Eyre directed it, and he sent me a note beforehand, saying, ‘Do remember that Grace Harkaway is the sort of girl who would send valentines to herself, then fall over with the joy of it when the card arrived from herself.’ That was a good note.
Michael was the young man who wins my hand, and Donald Sinden played his father, Sir Harcourt Courtly, as an elderly roué, heavily made-up like the outrageously camp actor Michael MacLiammoir. I had a long speech to Donald that got murmurs of laughter, turning to a kind of expectant buzz, and then an enormous burst of laughter. I used not to look at Donald too much during it, because Grace was off on a great flight of fancy, and I thought it was so wonderful the way the speech was going. It was only later that I glanced at Donald and saw that, as my speech got more flowery and more over the top, he very gradually looked out towards the audience, and pursed his red lipsticked mouth, with his eyebrow going up and down. It used to bring the house down, and I realised it wasn’t my speech at all, it was Donald’s reaction.
The production was such a hit that it ran for two seasons. It was huge fun, we got great belters of laughs from it, the audiences loved it – apart from the broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who left before the end. But the grimmest audience was the night the Queen came with Edward Heath, then Prime Minister. It wasn’t her fault, it was just that every time there was a line saying, ‘Oh, the Queen’s gone mad again’, everyone looked at her for a reaction.
All the family were in this production; in addition to Michael and myself there was my brother Jeff and, for six months, my daughter Finty, as I was pregnant for most of the run. I had a lovely friend in Nottingham called Brian Smedley, who was a judge, and he had asked me to marry him. I had told him, ‘I’ll have to think about it, Brian.’ But I never got in touch with him, and the next time I saw him I was about five months pregnant. He just put his head round the door of my dressing room and said, ‘I take it the answer’s no?’ I was six months pregnant when I left the production in the last week. In the first scene Janet Whiteside had to say to me, ‘Do you feel nothing stirring?’ That got the biggest laugh.
After the last performance the cast gave me a huge Paddington Bear as a leaving gift for the baby; Grace Kelly was in the audience that night and Donald Sinden asked her to present it to me.
6
Happy families
1970-1975
THE POPULARITY OF LONDON ASSURANCE ensured that it stayed in the RSC repertoire for longer than most productions. During this time I also did four markedly different plays. The first of these was Major Barbara , directed by Clifford Williams, who specialised in plays by Bernard Shaw. I had played Barbara on television eight years earlier, with Brewster Mason as Undershaft, and luckily he was also playing the same part again. He was a boyfriend of mine for a short while, and he used to take me to a little club near the Comedy Theatre, where I met several members of the Crazy Gang – Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox, and Monsewer Eddie Gray – and we all used to play the bluffer’s game Spoof; that was good fun. In addition to Brewster, the cast included old friends Richard Pasco, Roger Rees and Elizabeth Spriggs.
The Merchant of Venice was much less fun. I loathe the play, I think it is terrible, everyone behaves so frightfully badly. Who cares about anybody in it? My instinct
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