flattering about the script … although Fliss later told me to discount his praise since he’s infamous for only ever reading his own role (which explains his appearance in The Academy among all those debauched Athenians). He informed us that he had met Unity backstage at the Old Vic. We pumped him for memories. ‘I think it was Diana Wynward who brought her. Now there was an actress. Did you see her Beatrice? No, of course not. You’re far too young…. The only thing I recall about her is that she barely spoke. But then very few people do in a dressing-room . Especially when you’re playing a King. And I’ve played somany. It says in one of the books that I was a heartthrob of hers. Oh dear! One does attract some very strange people.’
As if on cue, an American matron with a magnifying glass dangling on an already voluminous bosom descended on us and asked ‘Sir Bamforth’ if he would sign an autograph for her granddaughter . The slighted knight graciously obliged.
Just as Wolfram relates everything to the cinema, so Sir Hallam does to the theatre. Mention any world event of the past fifty years and he’ll tell you what he was appearing in at the time. As soon as I brought up the Munich crisis, he told me that he had been ‘at the Haymarket in Rosmersholm with darling Hattie. It was terribly bad for business. The audience stayed away in droves.’ He himself made an extensive tour of Germany in 1936 (‘the summer between Quality Street and the Dream ’), which he described, rather archly, as his sauerkraut days. It started with a mission to Berlin to persuade Christopher Isherwood, whose verse plays with Auden had enjoyed a modest success, 30 to write a piece for him. ‘Of course, it came to nothing. I think they regarded me as too West End.’
He is endearingly indiscreet. Talking of ‘darling Hattie’, he remarked that her autumnal success was ‘conclusive proof of the adage that old age is the revenge of ugly women.’ George V, who slept through a command performance of Henry IV , was ‘a man so lowbrow he thought highbrow was spelt eyebrow.’ Churchill, who watched productions of Shakespeare with the text propped on his knee, ‘used to collect his thoughts so slowly that he appeared to be anthologising them.’ On learning that Geraldine Mortimer was being mooted to play Diana, he described her as ‘a woman who has never been able to live down to her reputation,’ adding that ‘most actresses are wanting to be discovered; she was discoveredto be wanting.’ Fliss, ever the cynic, claimed that the line sounded so rehearsed that he must have used it before. 31 He is adamant that, if Geraldine is cast, he will have a clause written into his contract banning her from talking politics on set.
I, on the other hand, will be more than happy to sit through his entire repertoire of anecdotes. And there’ll be ample opportunity. This is one writer who won’t be restricted to a courtesy tour of the studio, taking care not to trip over the stars. At first, Wolfram asked me to stay on as dialogue coach (oh yes, like I’m going to tell Sir Hallam Bamforth how to speak his lines!). Now, however, he has decided to cast me as Brian Howard. 32 There’s no need to rack your brains; Howard is another post-Edinburgh addition. It’s not a large part so I don’t expect my Oscar to gain a twin, but it should be fun. I only wish that I hadn’t agreed to write a rather steamy scene between Howard and one of the boys that Unity pimped for him at the Munich fasching . 33 Wolfram’s purpose – and it’s an honourable one – is to highlight Unity’s double standards in indulging her friends while, at the same time, her beloved Storms were dragging sex offenders to jail. If I suggest toning it down, he’ll accuse me of exhibiting double standards myself. I suppose I’ll just have to grin and bare it – and hope that my mother nips out for an ice cream. 34
There are some things that I won’t bear, and some
As if on cue, an American matron with a magnifying glass dangling on an already voluminous bosom descended on us and asked ‘Sir Bamforth’ if he would sign an autograph for her granddaughter . The slighted knight graciously obliged.
Just as Wolfram relates everything to the cinema, so Sir Hallam does to the theatre. Mention any world event of the past fifty years and he’ll tell you what he was appearing in at the time. As soon as I brought up the Munich crisis, he told me that he had been ‘at the Haymarket in Rosmersholm with darling Hattie. It was terribly bad for business. The audience stayed away in droves.’ He himself made an extensive tour of Germany in 1936 (‘the summer between Quality Street and the Dream ’), which he described, rather archly, as his sauerkraut days. It started with a mission to Berlin to persuade Christopher Isherwood, whose verse plays with Auden had enjoyed a modest success, 30 to write a piece for him. ‘Of course, it came to nothing. I think they regarded me as too West End.’
He is endearingly indiscreet. Talking of ‘darling Hattie’, he remarked that her autumnal success was ‘conclusive proof of the adage that old age is the revenge of ugly women.’ George V, who slept through a command performance of Henry IV , was ‘a man so lowbrow he thought highbrow was spelt eyebrow.’ Churchill, who watched productions of Shakespeare with the text propped on his knee, ‘used to collect his thoughts so slowly that he appeared to be anthologising them.’ On learning that Geraldine Mortimer was being mooted to play Diana, he described her as ‘a woman who has never been able to live down to her reputation,’ adding that ‘most actresses are wanting to be discovered; she was discoveredto be wanting.’ Fliss, ever the cynic, claimed that the line sounded so rehearsed that he must have used it before. 31 He is adamant that, if Geraldine is cast, he will have a clause written into his contract banning her from talking politics on set.
I, on the other hand, will be more than happy to sit through his entire repertoire of anecdotes. And there’ll be ample opportunity. This is one writer who won’t be restricted to a courtesy tour of the studio, taking care not to trip over the stars. At first, Wolfram asked me to stay on as dialogue coach (oh yes, like I’m going to tell Sir Hallam Bamforth how to speak his lines!). Now, however, he has decided to cast me as Brian Howard. 32 There’s no need to rack your brains; Howard is another post-Edinburgh addition. It’s not a large part so I don’t expect my Oscar to gain a twin, but it should be fun. I only wish that I hadn’t agreed to write a rather steamy scene between Howard and one of the boys that Unity pimped for him at the Munich fasching . 33 Wolfram’s purpose – and it’s an honourable one – is to highlight Unity’s double standards in indulging her friends while, at the same time, her beloved Storms were dragging sex offenders to jail. If I suggest toning it down, he’ll accuse me of exhibiting double standards myself. I suppose I’ll just have to grin and bare it – and hope that my mother nips out for an ice cream. 34
There are some things that I won’t bear, and some
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