33-536: Geraldine McEwan (born Geraldine McKeown ; 9 May 1932 – 30 January 2015) was an English actress, who had a long career in film, theatre and television. Michael Coveney described her, in a tribute article, as "a great comic stylist, with a syrupy, seductive voice and a forthright, sparkling manner". McEwan was a five-time Olivier Award nominee, and twice won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress ; for The Rivals (1983) and The Way of
66-671: A printers' compositor , ran the Labour Party branch in Old Windsor, a safe Conservative seat. She later simplified the spelling of her last name from McKeown to McEwan. McEwan won a scholarship to attend Windsor County Girls' School , then a private school where she felt completely out of place, and took elocution lessons. However, in later life she said she had loved English and the teaching of Miss Meech in particular. In an interview with Cassandra Jardine of The Daily Telegraph in 2004, she said of herself around this time: "I
99-440: A 2005 interview when the series was first being screened by PBS, "I do enjoy playing very original and slightly eccentric characters. It is very amusing that Agatha Christie should have created this older woman who lives a very conventional life in a little country village and yet spends all her time solving violent crimes." She announced her retirement from the role early in 2008, after appearing in 12 films; she had fallen and broken
132-543: A biography of Ken Campbell , The Great Caper . He has also published a biography of Andrew Lloyd Webber , and a revised edition of his biography of Maggie Smith was published in 2015. Aldwych Theatre The Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre , located in Aldwych in the City of Westminster , central London. It was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200 on three levels. The theatre
165-469: A diary of a year in the theatre, was withdrawn following complaints of potential libel from Milton Shulman ; although, as reported in The Times of 21 September 1994, Coveney "thought the comments were in the spirit of the book. I rather regret that Milton, of whom I am actually rather fond, didn't take them in that spirit." Most copies of the book had been sold before its withdrawal. In 2011, he published
198-539: A hip late the previous year. She was succeeded as Miss Marple in the series by Julia McKenzie . In 2005, she provided the voice of Miss Thripp in the film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and again in A Matter of Loaf and Death in 2008. In 1953, McEwan married Hugh Cruttwell , whom she had first met when she was 14 years old, while working at the Theatre Royal, Windsor . Cruttwell
231-606: A new version of Hicks's popular pantomime Bluebell in Fairyland . In 1906, Hicks's The Beauty of Bath , followed in 1907 by The Gay Gordons , played at the theatre. In February 1913, the theatre was used by Serge Diaghilev and Vaslav Nijinsky for the first rehearsals of Le Sacre du Printemps before its première in Paris during May. In 1920, Basil Rathbone played Major Wharton in The Unknown . From 1923 to 1933,
264-575: A prescient computer. McEwan played the demented witch Mortianna in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). In Peter Mullan 's The Magdalene Sisters , (2002), she played the role of Sister Bridget . In 2001, she voiced Margaret in the audio book Richard III . McEwan was selected by Granada Television for Marple (2004–07), a new series featuring the Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple . She told The New York Times in
297-545: A production of Sheridan's The Rivals at the National Theatre by Peter Wood which also featured Michael Hordern as Sir Anthony Absolute. Michael Billington wrote of this performance in 2015: "It is easy to play the word-mangling Mrs Malaprop as a comic buffoon. But the whole point of McEwan's performance was that she took language with fastidious seriousness, fractionally pausing before each misplaced epithet as if ransacking her private lexicography. As I said at
330-683: Is a British theatre critic. Coveney was born in London and educated at St Ignatius’ College in Stamford Hill , and Worcester College , Oxford . After graduation, he worked as a script reader for the Royal Court Theatre and from 1972 he contributed theatre reviews to the Financial Times . He was deputy editor (1973–75) and editor (1975–78) of Plays and Players magazine and theatre critic and deputy arts editor of
363-762: The Duke of York's ) who had staged the British premiere 40 years earlier. This production had a brief run on Broadway between April and June 1998; McEwan was nominated for a Tony Award . Her later television credits include Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1990), for which she won the British Academy Television Award as Best Actress in 1991, and Mulberry (1992–93). She was also in the Cassandra episode of Red Dwarf (1999), playing
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#1732794161369396-708: The Evening Standard special award in 1972. In 1990–91, Joan Collins starred in a revival of Private Lives at the Aldwych. The theatre is referred to in Julio Cortázar 's short story Instructions for John Howell ( Instrucciones para John Howell ) in the anthology All Fires the Fire ( Todos los fuegos el fuego ). Since 2000, the theatre has hosted a mixture of plays, comedies and musical theatre productions. Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Whistle Down
429-805: The Financial Times throughout the 1980s. He was theatre critic for The Observer from 1990 until he joined the Daily Mail in 1997, following the death of Jack Tinker . He remained at the Daily Mail until 2004. He was chief critic of the theatre website WhatsOnStage.co until retiring from the role in 2016. He is the author of The Citz , a history of the Citizens Theatre (Nick Hern Books, 1990) and Maggie Smith : A Bright Particular Star ( Victor Gollancz Ltd , 1993). His book The Aisle Is Full of Noises (Nick Hern Books, 1994),
462-631: The Aldwych under the title Lilac Time . From the mid-1930s until about 1960, the theatre was owned by the Abrahams family. In 1949, Laurence Olivier directed the first London production of Tennessee Williams ' A Streetcar Named Desire at the Aldwych Theatre. Starring as Blanche DuBois was Olivier's wife Vivien Leigh , who later won an Academy Award for the role in the 1951 film of Williams' play. Bonar Colleano co-starred as Stanley. On 15 December 1960, after intense speculation, it
495-889: The Captain rather than McEwan's as Alice, the Captain's wife. A film version , with the same two leads, was released in 1969. During her first period at the National, she also portrayed Angelica in William Congreve 's Love for Love , Raymonde Chandebise in Georges Feydeau 's A Flea in Her Ear , Millamant in The Way of the World and Vittoria Corombona in John Webster 's The White Devil . Until her roles in
528-814: The Roses , "Ondine" with Peter Hall's wife Leslie Caron , The Greeks , and Nicholas Nickleby , as well as the transfer of most of the Shakespeare productions that were first staged at the RSC's Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford. During absences of the RSC, the theatre hosted the annual World Theatre Seasons , foreign plays in their original productions, invited to London by the theatre impresario Peter Daubeny , annually from 1964 to 1973 and finally in 1975. For his involvement with these Aldwych seasons, run without Arts Council or other official support, Daubeny won
561-829: The Windsor stage in October 1946 as an attendant of Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream and played many parts with the Windsor Repertory Company from March 1949 to March 1951, including a role in the Ruth Gordon biographical play Years Ago opposite guest player John Clark . McEwan made her first West End appearance at the Vaudeville Theatre on 4 April 1951 as Christina Deed in Who Goes There! The following year she appeared at
594-774: The World (1995). She was also nominated for the 1998 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Chairs . She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the 1990 television serial Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit , and from 2004 to 2009, she starred as the Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple , in the ITV series Marple . She was born Geraldine McKeown on 9 May 1932 in Old Windsor , Berkshire, England, to Donald and Norah (née Burns) McKeown. She had Irish ancestors; her maternal grandfather came from Kilkenny while her paternal grandfather came from Belfast . Her father,
627-482: The late 1950s and early 1960s, during the period when it was evolving into the Stratford venue for the new Royal Shakespeare Company formed in 1960, and at The Aldwych , the RSC's original London home. During the 1958 season in Stratford, she played Olivia in Twelfth Night in a production directed by Peter Hall . After McEwan died, The Guardian ' s Michael Billington wrote of this performance: "At
660-535: The next 5 years. She appeared with Olivier in Dance of Death , staged by Glen Byam Shaw and first performed in February 1967. Olivier asserted, according to his biographer Philip Ziegler , that he had chosen August Strindberg 's play partly because it had a good part for McEwan: "I didn't give a damn if I made a success, I really didn't; it was her success I was after". The notices though concentrated on his role as
693-411: The performance of the night and her career) comes on looking like an ostrich which has mysteriously been crammed into a tambourine lined with fresh flowers." With Richard Briers , she starred from November 1997 in a revival of Eugène Ionesco 's absurdist play The Chairs in a co-production between Simon McBurney 's Théâtre de Complicité and London's Royal Court Theatre (then temporarily based at
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#1732794161369726-766: The plays by Strindberg and Webster, McEwan was viewed mainly as a comedian, but these parts were thought to have extended her range. McEwan took the lead role in an adaptation for Scottish Television of Muriel Spark 's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1978). She was Spark's favourite in the role and came the closest to the character as Spark had imagined it; Brodie has also been portrayed on stage and screen by Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith . Her other work for television in this period included roles in The Barchester Chronicles (1982) and Mapp and Lucia (1985–86) with Prunella Scales as Mapp and McEwan as Lucia. In 1983, McEwan played Mrs Malaprop in
759-794: The same theatre in Sweet Madness by Peter Jones . McEwan first appeared on television in a BBC series, Crime on Our Hands (1954), with Jack Watling , Dennis Price and Sonia Dresdel . In 1957, she took over from Joan Plowright in the Royal Court production of John Osborne 's play The Entertainer during its West End run at the Palace Theatre . McEwan appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon during
792-705: The theatre in 1961 to portray Ophelia in Hamlet , opposite Ian Bannen as the Prince, and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing with Christopher Plummer as Benedict. In a production of Sheridan 's The School for Scandal , directed by Sir John Gielgud in 1962, McEwan replaced Anna Massey as Mrs Teazle during the run at the Haymarket Theatre , London; her husband was played by Sir Ralph Richardson . After an American tour, this production
825-402: The theatre was the home of the series of twelve farces, known as the Aldwych farces , most of which were written by Ben Travers . Members of the regular company for these farces included Ralph Lynn , Tom Walls , Ethel Coleridge , Gordon James , Mary Brough , Winifred Shotter and Robertson Hare . In 1933, Richard Tauber presented and starred in a new version of Das Dreimäderlhaus at
858-613: The time Olivia tended to be played as a figure of mature grief: McEwan was young, sparky, witty and clearly brimming with desire for Dorothy Tutin 's pageboy Viola." McEwan's performance, according to Dominic Shellard , split contemporary critical opinion between those observers who considered it "heretical" and others who thought it "revolutionary". In the same season at Stratford, McEwan portrayed Marina in Pericles and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing . She returned to
891-776: The time, it was like watching a demolition expert trying to construct a cathedral." For this role, McEwan won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress. She made her directorial debut, in 1988, with the Renaissance Theatre Company 's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road , co-produced with the Birmingham Rep , and ending with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. McEwan's contribution
924-472: Was a light romantic staging of As You Like It , with Kenneth Branagh playing Touchstone as an Edwardian music hall comedian. McEwan won another Evening Standard Best Actress Award in 1995 for her role as Lady Wishfort in a revival of Congreve's The Way of the World , again at the National Theatre. Sheridan Morley , then theatre critic of The Spectator , wrote, "Geraldine McEwan (in
957-702: Was announced that the Royal Shakespeare Company , headquartered in Stratford-upon-Avon and under the directorship of Peter Hall (director) was to make the Aldwych Theatre its base in London for the next three years. In the event the company stayed for over 20 years, finally moving to the Barbican Arts Centre in 1982. The theatre was sold to the Nederlander Organization immediately afterwards. Among numerous RSC productions staged at this venue were The Wars of
990-679: Was constructed in the newly built Aldwych as a pair with the Waldorf Theatre, now known as the Novello Theatre . Both buildings were designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by W. G. R. Sprague . The Aldwych Theatre was funded by Seymour Hicks in association with the American impresario Charles Frohman , and built by Walter Wallis of Balham . The theatre opened on 23 December 1905 with a production of Blue Bell ,
1023-856: Was staged at the Majestic in New York in early 1963, and was McEwan's debut on Broadway. Back in England, she appeared with Kenneth Williams in the original unsuccessful 1965 production of Loot by Joe Orton , which closed at the Wimbledon Theatre before reaching London. After this debacle, she joined the National Theatre Company , then based at the Old Vic , following the suggestion of Sir Laurence Olivier , then its artistic director, and performed in 11 productions over
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1056-740: Was the Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 to 1984. They had a son Greg , who is an actor and screenwriter, and a daughter named Claudia. McEwan was reported to have declined an OBE and later, a DBE (in 2002), but she did not respond to these claims. McEwan died on 30 January 2015 at the Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith , aged 82, after suffering a stroke three months earlier. Michael Coveney Michael Coveney (born 24 July 1948)
1089-460: Was very shy, very private", but after reading a poem (apparently Lady Macbeth 's speech "Glamis thou art and Cawdor...") at a Brownie concert: "I realised it was going to be a way in which I could manage the world. I could protect myself by losing myself in other people." As a teenager, McEwan became interested in theatre and her theatrical career began at 14 as assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor . She made her first appearance on
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