I loved the boys — they were a sweet, funny bunch — and I’m still friendly with all of them, particularly Stephen Fry, of whom I’m extremely fond, and the late Patsy Byrne (who played Nursie), for whom I’ve often been mistaken. And, of course, I know Tony Robinson from our time together in Leicester in 1968; I’ve seen him again quite recently, because he was president of Equity and he was knighted which was a bit of a surprise — Tony was as flabbergasted as anybody.
The Blackadder atmosphere was totally different from the nail-biting competition of the Footlights. A generation or two later, there was a pleasure in each other’s success and a generosity of spirit between the lads that I hadn’t seen before. It was just as funny, funnier even, but without the personal edge. I prefer Harmony House — by which I mean I like people to get on — and my Blackadder pals were gentlemen and gentle men.
Not least because this time I was allowed the last word:
Blackadder: Right! Well, perhaps this time I might be allowed to continue, and perhaps finish, with any luck…
[Suddenly, from under Queen Elizabeth’s dress, Lady Whiteadder emerges, grinning.]
Lady Whiteadder: ‘Luck’? Hah hah hah! Way-hey! Get it?
[Everyone says, ‘No…’]
Lady Whiteadder: Oh, come on! ‘Luck’! Sounds almost exactly like ‘f—’.
It is a Far, Far Better Thing
I discovered Charles Dickens when I was eleven, reading Oliver Twist. I have loved the world Dickens demands you enter ever since. With hindsight, it’s possible that his delight in the criminal world, his compassion for the poor and his sense of mischief (the Artful Dodger) meshed with my own emerging personality. ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’
And I wanted more. After Oliver Twist, I went through all fifteen novels — Dickens created over 2000 characters. And there is a lot more — 14,000 letters (no, I haven’t read all of them) and novellas, journalism, speeches. Words poured out of him. More than any other writer I can think of, Dickens distilled his life into his work. Though a genius, I can’t help thinking that he was a complete bastard, or I should say rather that he was an incomplete bastard, because he wasn’t totally shitty. Dickens was a wonderful friend; he was a good father; he was a good employer. But when he turned against you, he had a cruelty and viciousness that was almost unhinged. All this runs through his books.
Throughout his life he felt underprivileged. He overcompensated by being a dandy. With his big, flouncy neckties and the flourishes of his hands, when he went to America some people thought this foppish figure terribly vulgar. His signature was absurdly pretentious; rather like that of Queen Elizabeth I’s, or any twelve-year-old’s, wandering all over the page. In that respect he’s as grotesque, humorous, tragic and as manifold as any of his creations. The man interested me as much as the writer. Unsurprisingly, I chose Dickens as my special subject at Cambridge.
If I was damaged by my mother, it was because she made me over-confident rather than the opposite, because she believed in me so totally and gave me so much love. Dickens’s mother, however, never made him feel that he was important. Most men get over it, but Dickens didn’t; he never got over anything that happened to him. His attitude towards women always remained ambivalent. I find his preference for a certain type of pre-pubescent heroine, whom he invariably describes as ‘little’, or ‘slight’, ‘tiny’, ‘small’ or ‘slender’ — and all aged seventeen — more than a bit iffy. I am not little — and I am quite sure he would not have liked me.
But Dickens is the poet of the extraordinary; he pushes reality to extremes. I don’t think there are many other actresses who are as temperamentally suited to interpreting his work as I am. As I said, I’m an over-actress; I’m at home in extremes: that’s my weakness and my strength. Dickens is my element.
In the late eighties, I was lucky enough to win the role of Flora Finching in Christine Edzard’s film, Little Dorrit. Flora was based on Dickens’s first love, Maria Beadnell. Maria led him on and then spurned him; he took his revenge by creating Flora, when twenty-five years later Maria came back into his life, hoping to re-inflame his love. Alongside the pity and disgust Dickens felt for Maria, so physically altered: ‘toothless, fat, old and ugly’, he also allowed her pathos to come through in the character. That is his artistry.
The film had an enormous effect on my life. I had the chance to interpret a character using all my knowledge of that novel, and I was working with a brilliant cast: Derek Jacobi, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, Patricia Hayes, Max Wall and Cyril Cusack (the complete cast numbered 242 actors — extras not included) in a unique environment which stimulated all of us to give our best work. And when I won an LA Critics’ Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (with Geneviève Bujold) it brought me to America — but that’s for later in my story.
Christine Edzard is an extraordinary woman, one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with, and I must take this opportunity to hail her achievements and those of her company, Sands Films, and especially her indefatigable colleague, Olivier Stockman, my favourite Belgian. The interview for the part took place in the ramshackle warren of the old warehouse by the Thames in Rotherhithe that is the home of Sands Films. Christine is exceptionally quiet; and that day she hardly spoke. This always frightens me, so I kept talking, frenetically, without pausing — just as Flora Finching would have done.
She gave me the part and, in the film, the lines I speak are exactly as Dickens wrote them; Christine had the wisdom and the confidence not to change Flora’s stream-of-consciousness speeches. But there is also a sadness beneath the comedy of Flora Finching. As a fat person, I know what she went through; Flora wanted to be desirable still, and thought she was. On the outside, there is all the coquettish pantomime; inside there is the desperate, longing woman.
Every scene was filmed inside the studios. Delightful dressing-rooms were created in the old warehouse; every morning there was a vase of flowers in everyone’s room. Cast and crew ate lunch and supper together in the canteen prepared by Molly, an expert chef; we became the Little Dorrit family. Hair and make-up were brilliantly done by ex-BBC Pam Meager. Harry Ellam sewed the embroidery for the costumes, based entirely on original pictures. He called it ‘painting with threads’ and did his exquisite work on countless shawls, waistcoats, purses, braces, flounces, collars, ribbons, and even the slippers worn by Sir Alec Guinness. Marion Weise was my dresser. Every day she had to lace me into my corset. She’d never done it before and her face, the first time I had to strip off, was a picture. She did recover eventually. There has never been a production like it: Christine was nominated for a screenplay Oscar; Derek Jacobi and Alec Guinness won awards for their brilliant work — and so did I!
It wasn’t the first time I’d played a Dickens character: I had been Mrs Corney (who becomes Mrs Bumble) in the 1985 twelve-part BBC dramatisation of Oliver Twist. But it was the critical acclaim for my portrayal of Flora Finching that made me think it was the right time to try to put my ideas on Dickens into theatrical shape.
Sonia Fraser and I went to see Frank Dunlop, who was then running the Edinburgh Festival, with the idea for a one-woman show telling the story of Dickens’s life through his characters. This was certainly the most respectable production I’d ever proposed to Edinburgh Festival. The first time I had appeared at the Festival was in Ubu Roi at the Traverse in 1963, directed by Gordon McDougall. I played Ma Ubu. I remember the costumes were designed by Gerald Scarfe in the shape of the male and female genital organs. So I really was a cunt, and wore the costume! It caused a great fuss at City Hall — the usual uproar from the Edinburgh aldermen trying to protect their citizens from filth.