| RADIO 2 - ANITA DOBSON |
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INTERVIEWED BY MICHAEL PARKINSON
19 SEPTEMBER 1999 Michael Parkinson: NOW when you look at the career of my special guest today, the word 'versatile' comes to mind - everything from Stoppard to Pantomime, Berkov to musicals - the way she appeared in EastEnders as Angie, a turbulent relationship with Dirty Den, turned her into one of the everlasting television characters and she is ANITA DOBSON. Good morning. Anita Dobson: Good morning. MP: You're here because in fact another strand in your career - you're appearing in The Pyjama Game.. Anita: I am MP: ..which opens shortly, October the 4th I think. Anita: That's right October the 4th - previews start on Tuesday. MP: On Tuesday. So - how's it going? Anita: It's going very well. We had a little bit of a shock when we got into the Victoria Palace, because we'd been very spoiled at the theatre we were at before in Canada, which was vast and had enormous wing space, and of course the Victoria Palace, although its a divine theatre, has a much smaller wing space, so none of us could actually get on the stage and some of us got on and then found we couldn't get off [laughs] because of the machines and all the props and everything, but um, yesterday was much better indication and everybody seems to have a rhythm and know where everything's going now. MP: Why Canada? Anita: Why Canada? I don't know. I mean it started out at Birmingham. MP: Birmingham, that's right. Birmingham Rep. Anita: We did three months up there. Six weeks rehearsal and put the show together and I think they must have done some kind of a deal with Ed Murvish I guess, if he kind of put himself behind the show that we would then take it out there, which we did, for 6 weeks, with a Canadian girl in the lead. MP: Right. I've seen it, I saw it in 1955 - that dates me a bit doesn't it [laughing]...... Max Wall and Joy Nichols and people like that, and and this time it's quite a modern musical, but does it hold up? I mean the story is of a factory, isn't it, of a pyjama factory and the relationship between - its about trade unions as well -its a very strange story for a musical. Anita: It is. MP: In 1955 it was unheard of actually, now of course, its much more acceptable I sense. But have you had to update it at all? Does it feel dated? Anita: Well that's a very good question and we're going to find out the answer very soon aren't we [laughs] of course. But, um, we, we have had some things updated. I mean, the set has been designed by a man called Frank Steller who's a very famous abstract painter. MP: That's right. Anita: So there's a kind of surreal quality to it from that angle. Um, a lot of the first half's done in kind of mostly black and white except for a very large picnic scene, which goes into colour, and then the second half goes into sort of pastels and much brighter kind of primaries later on. But, um, there is still a feel of it being a kind of charming, old fashioned musical, mainly because of the nature of the beast, the way its written. I mean its written with a soubrette, a leading girl, a heroine, with, um a male comic character who, and also with a male lead, a sort of hero figure. You've got a kind of sort of older comic relief, you've got a chorus of pretty girls, you know, and very pretty men, who can all dance, so its kind of an old fashioned structure and I think from that point of view you have to kind of take it on board as a kind of a classic piece in a way. MP: Yea, its got some nice songs, songs that have held up and we'll play one in just a moment. It's also to its good got a pedigree, because when you look at the Broadway production, I mean it was Bob Fossey, his first job as a choreographer, Shirley McLaine came on as an understudy. Anita: Yes. MP: I mean its been an extraordinary, um it has this extraordinary background. Anita: That's right. I mean its sort of made people's careers hasn't it, and may do again. May finish some, [laughs] we don't know. But I think that's true, I think those kind of musicals because they are slightly off the wall and slightly unique, that they can do that, they can thrust somebody into prominence. Of course, the old story, it's classic isn't it, the lead off.. MP: 42nd Street. Anita: ....and the understudy goes on. MP: Sure. It's not the first musical you've done, of course. I mean you've done quite a few musicals, haven't you? Anita: On and off. MP: On and off, yeah. Anita: Yes - I've kind of sort of popped in and out really. MP: Do you enjoy them? Do you find them much more taxing than straight theatre? Anita: It's a kind of different kind of energy. I mean straight theatre is taxing because you're kind of digging down into that emotion all the time - that pit of emotion you've kind of got to get there every night - but a musical's different, because although its, its good fun, you've still got to get lots of energy, you've got to look like you're having the most WONDERFUL time, the WHOLE time - otherwise it just doesn't work, I don't think. MP: [laughs]But when you were, when you were a kid growing up, I know you went to the cinema an awful lot. I mean, was it Ginger Rogers and people like that you that you looked at and thought, that's that's it - that's what I wanna be? Anita: Yeah, I think it was. When I as little we got our first television which had little doors which you opened like a cabinet [laughing] - that dates me now, doesn't it - and I used to sit in front of it and they had all those Judy Garland movies, Ginger Rogers movies, Bette Davis movies, then they'd be having a Joan Crawford season. I watched them every single Sunday. I used to sit there weeping with all thes old tear-jerkers and my mother used to say "Why are you crying - it's only a film", and I used to say "But if you don't get into it, it's not worth doing is it?". And I think that's where it all started. MP: Cos I mean you were, you were an East End girl, weren't you? You started off in the East End of London. I mean, was it an unlikely ambition that you had to, to be an actor from that point of view, from that backgound? Anita: I think so, yes, because if you said to anybody where I came from in Stepney, "I want to be an actress", they looked at you as if you were mad - like "Oh yeah, it's a nice dream but forget it. You know, you'll get married, have three children, settle down and that'll be you." And indeed that nearly WAS me - I did sort of go through all that - I got engaged, was gonna get married and ... MP: What - as a young person? Anita: As a young girl, yeah, I mean, because that's what everybody was doing. Everybody on the block at a certain point left school, found a feller, got engaged and the next was "You're going to get married, aren't you, and when are you having children" and that's the end of you, and it was my dad really who said, you know "There's a big world out there. If you do have dreams and ambitions, go for it. Go find them", he said, "because you don't have to stay in the East End. You don't have to, to turn your back on it, its always your, your roots - be proud it - but you can move on and go to other places." MP: Was this your dad speaking from his own ambition and frustration, was it. I mean, did he have aspirations? Anita: Possibly - I think my dad, when he left the Army after the war, I think he probably did want to be an actor. He dabbled in it a little bit, but you had to pay sixteen pounds to join the theatre company and he didn't have the money [laughs] so that put an end to his career, but he introduced me to Shakespeare. He gave me the Complete Works of Shakespeare and used to talk to me all the time. He was a great talker, my father, and used to talk about art, the the theatre and poetry, so I got interested at a very young age and my mother is a sort of colourful, very emotional woman and she used to sing with an Airforce band. MP: Oh right. Anita: So I kind of had those two things going on all the time. |
