Felicity Kendal is Bliss as Bliss

Following on the back of a successful UK tour, Noël Coward’s HAY FEVER is playing a short Australian tour before the West End. Peter Pinne spoke with star Felicity Kendal about Coward, amplification in straight theatre and her career.

This is the first time you have appeared on the stage in Australia, but I believe it’s not your first visit. “No, I was here twenty years ago for a commercial in Sydney and I had ten marvellous days exploring that wonderful city.”

Now that you are finally on an Australian stage what do you think of the audiences? “Absolutely brilliant. I’m thrilled. In fact their reaction is exactly the same as the audience in Richmond, which was the last place we played before we came out here. They get Coward and they get his style of comedy.”

Yes Coward’s very popular in Australia. Every other year our state theatre companies program one of his plays. Mind you they’re not always done as well as this one and sometimes they muck about with them which I don’t think really works. “Yes we have those sorts of productions in England too.”

This is your third Coward play within the last few years. What is the secret to playing him? “Well, I don’t profess to having a secret, I don’t think there is one, but I do believe you have to do it as Coward wrote it. You can’t play around with it and bring your own personal quirks to it, but you have to play it truthfully and real. In Hay Fever the characters are fast thinking intelligent and witty people, rather like Coward himself, so you have to think and speak at the speed at which he thought. His mind leads to the emotion. It’s not Chekhov. The emotion comes out of the words. You can’t act Coward, it has to be completely real. Lots of people think Coward is all long cigarette holders and martinis, but he’s not. His characters are real people. We’ve all met them or know of people like them. We can identify with them.”

Many well-known actors have played Judith Bliss in the past including Dame Edith Evans and Judi Dench. Was the role something you’ve always wanted to play? “No. I have been offered it many times but the time just never seemed to be right until now.”

This production started at the Theatre Royal, Bath, and then toured. How many weeks were you on tour? “Seven.” Do you like touring? “In Australia, yes. I’m sick of touring in England though. I’ve done it so many times.” Is it essential for an acting career to tour? “Absolutely. It’s vital. These days with the cost of mounting a production you have to tour. The producers need it. It also allows people outside of London to see the production for a price that’s not West End. Young people are able to afford it and that’s important.”

What happens after Australia? “Well we have Christmas at home and then if everything falls into place we go into the West End in January.”

You’ve worked in theatre, television and film and of course are famous in this country for your TV roles in The Good Life and Rosemary and Thyme. Which is your favourite medium? “None, I like them all. If a good television role came up tomorrow then I’d do that like a shot, but I tend to do more theatre because that is where the better writing is.”

Do you have a favourite playwright? Stoppard, Ayckbourn, Coward, Shaw? “I’d have to say Shakespeare.” Despite premiering 5 Stoppard plays? “Yes, it’s what I was schooled in.”

[English born, Kendal grew up in India and travelled with her father who was an actor/manager who brought Shakespeare to that colony. The Merchant Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah in which Kendal starred is loosely based on the Kendal family’s real-life experiences in post-colonial India. Her love of Shakespeare was instilled at an early age. Her first stage appearance was when she was nine-months old when she was carried on stage as a changeling boy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.]

In 2010 you appeared in Strictly Come Dancing. “Yes, I did, and I can’t really dance.” Did you reach the finals? “The semi-finals.” Does that mean we’re likely to see you in a musical in the future? “No, I can’t sing.” But you sing in Hay Fever. “Oh but that’s not really singing. I mean I couldn’t get up there and belt it out like you have to do in big musicals.”

Have you ever appeared on Broadway? “No, although I have been asked many times. The timing was just not right with my schedule and the kids.” [Kendal has been married and divorced twice with both marriages producing a son.] Have they followed you into the theatre? “Oh no, one’s in law and the other works in film.”

Is there one play you have never done that you would like to appear in? “Private Lives, but then I’m too old for it now.”

What has been your most satisfying theatre experience? “It’s always working on a new play, not a classic, but something new, and getting it right. That’s the most satisfying experience of all.”

When asked her opinion of the recent practice on Broadway to mic plays Ms Kendal’s reaction was vehement. “It’s appalling. And they’ve started to do it in the West End now. Theatre is a contract between a live person and a live audience. You can’t have someone up the back twiddling knobs. It ceases to be a live performance. It’s an actor’s job to control an audience. I mean than in a nice way. You have to take them with you every step of the way. If you can’t be heard, go and find another job.”

Hay Fever plays at the Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane, October 23 – 8 November; Regal Theatre, Perth, 13-29 November; Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide, 3-7 December, 2014.

Photographer: Photographer: Nobby Clark.