[This is an occasional series describing British artistes
who found fame on stage or in the movies]
In the notably self-centred acting profession, my two
subjects stand out for their generosity to others. My first artiste, a Quaker,
is a globally recognised actress, supreme in the great classics of the
English-speaking stage with a glittering career in films and television over a
huge range: she is now 80 and still performing.
My second is a quintessentially English artiste, now 90, (both indeed
are from Yorkshire) who gave innocent pleasure and laughter to millions as a
purveyor of farce in London over 30 years and won further fame and respect as a
tireless campaigner for improvements in mental health and in the care of the
handicapped.
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| Dame Judi Dench |
Judi Dench (1934
- ) was born in Heworth, Yorks, daughter of a doctor GP who covered the York
Theatre where her mother was a wardrobe mistress. Judi attended the Mount
School in York, where she became a Quaker and appeared as an amateur in local
Mystery Plays; attracted to the profession she graduated in 1957 from the Central
School of Speech and Drama – a class-mate was Vanessa Redgrave. Judi had her
stage debut at the Old Vic as Juliet in 1957 in Romeo and Juliet and never looked
back, playing the same role for Zeffirelli in New York in 1960. Rather cruelly (and
inaccurately) she had been told by some director that she did not have the
looks to be a great actress but she pressed on regardless.
 |
| Young Judi Dench in 1968 |
For 20 years Judi delighted on the stage for the Royal
Shakespeare Company (her Lady Macbeth became a classic trademark and she was a
memorable Cleopatra) and for the National Theatre but she was also a notable
musical success as Sally Bowles in Cabaret
in 1968. She branched out into TV sitcoms playing alongside her husband since
1971 actor Michael Williams in A Fine
Romance from 1981-84 followed later by As
Time goes By with Geoffrey
Palmer. A flood of awards was won, BAFTAs, best actress and so on which it
would be wearying to chronicle.
Her film career was slower to take off. Her roles were
supporting ones like playing opposite her friend Maggie Smith in A Room with a View and she did not play
the lead in a film until her Queen Victoria opposite Billy Connolly in Mrs Brown (1997).
 |
| Judi in A Room with a View |
 |
| Judi as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown |
 |
| As Lady Catherine de Bourgh |
 |
| As Queen Elizabeth I |
She continues to bring distinction to whatever role she
plays. She was a splendid Matty Jenkyns in the BBC serialisation of Mrs
Gaskell’s Cranford: she illuminated
the surprise 2012 hit film Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel and was affecting as the searching mother in Philomena.
Global celebrity was hers after appearing from 1995 in 7
James Bond films as M, culminating in Skyfall
a mega-box office success.
 |
| Judi as M faces an enquiry in Skyfall |
Throughout her career she has been active in good causes for
the disabled, for deaf children, for threatened tribal communities in Colombia
and Botswana and as a sponsor of small, barely viable theatres. The honours
heaped upon her have included becoming a Dame in 1988 and a Companion of Honour
in 2005. She suffers from macular degeneration in her eyes and increasing
deafness, but dismisses any thought of retirement and indeed now has a new man
in her widowhood, wild-life enthusiast David Mills.
A final glimpse of this intelligent and good woman comes
from writer Alan Bennett, at a poetry reading of the usually lugubrious works
of Philip Larkin;
I have read “The Trees”
often in recitals but once, when I was reading with Judi Dench, she was
assigned the poem, the last line of which is:
“Begin afresh, afresh,
afresh.”
I had read the poem
umpteen times without sensing the obvious point that each “afresh” should be
differently inflected, which was how Judi read it. It was as if a bud was
opening….
------------------------------------
Brian Rix (1924-
) is an entirely different type of acting celebrity, much loved in his time,
but not accorded much appreciation in more highbrow theatrical circles. He was
a master of farce, in its rumbustious English incarnation, not replete with the
subtleties of Feydeau, and since he often ended up with his trousers round his
ankles his theatre was the home of the honest belly-laugh.
 |
| Brian Rix |
Brian Rix was born in Cottingham in the East Riding of
Yorkshire, the fourth child of a well-to-do local shipping and oil trading
businessman, based in Hull. He attended prestigious Bootham School in York and,
his mother being keen on amateur dramatics and running a local operatic
society, Brian became more interested in the theatre than in his first love,
cricket. Aged 18 in 1942, he joined Donald Wolfit’s theatrical company,
debuting as Sebastian in Twelfth Night
and later in rep in Harrogate; he was called up to the RAF but eventually saw
the war out as a volunteer “Bevin Boy” in the Doncaster coal mines.
Returning to the stage, Brian became an actor-manager in
1947, running rep in Yorkshire. He acquired in 1949 the rights to the farce Reluctant Heroes - a comedy about an
army boot camp. Rix married Scottish actress Elspet Gray in 1949 – they were
together until she died in 2013. They persuaded the owners of the Whitehall
Theatre to run the play and it was a huge success. Rix and his company were to
mount 5 Whitehall farces, Reluctant
Heroes, Dry Rot, Simple Spymen, One for the Pot and Chase Me, Comrade
all of which ran for 3 to 4 years. They stayed until 1966 and then moved to the
Garrick Theatre where their farces were somewhat less successful; Rix finally
retired from the stage in 1977.
Brian’s stage persona
was usually a gormless Northern character. I remember him in the madcap film Up to your Neck, where Rix, a modest naval rating, was charged with
controlling a captured Japanese submarine and when asked by an anxious Ronald
Shiner if he could cope, answered in quavering Yorkshire tones “Well, my Uncle
used to drive a tram in Bradford!”
 |
| Rix in Dry Rot |
Brian Rix’s Whitehall farces became an institution and
visitors would go for a good laugh just as once they had enjoyed the Crazy
Gang. For 20 years Brian also produced farces - 90 in all – for BBC TV and they
were wildly popular, despite their often creaking plots and predictable
outcomes. I certainly remember in the 1950s seeing Dry Rot at the Whitehall about
three crooked bookies, with Brian and
his fellow-farceur Leo Franklyn in top form, and laughing like a drain!
Brian and his wife Elspet had their first daughter Shelley
(1951-2005) who sadly was born with Down’s Syndrome. In the uncaring attitude
of the time their doctor advised them to find her an asylum and forget about
her; she was not capable of being educated and she was referred to as “a
mongol”. This went against all their instincts and for years Brian was a
tireless fund-raiser for the mentally handicapped and campaigner for their
rights and well-being. After retiring from the theatre he became
Secretary-General of Mencap in 1980. Raised to the peerage as Lord Rix in 1992,
Brian has moved numerous amendments and improvements in legislation from the
crossbenches; public opinion has been transformed over the years thanks to his
and others’ efforts. He is now Life President of Mencap.
 |
| Brian and Elspet Rix |
Brian Rix the actor made the nation laugh. Brian Rix the
campaigner moved the nation to care deeply for those who are utterly helpless.
For both these gifts he is held in honour.
SMD
9.12.14
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014
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