This Much Is True

Also, you stop giving a damn. When I get into a tube train and I want to sit down and there are no seats, I say: ‘Please, may I sit down?’ Once I was so exhausted and a man was sitting down right in front of me. When he didn’t stand up to offer me his seat, I just plonked myself on his lap! He was surprised, then really quite angry, but he got up pretty quickly. He didn’t stay under the Mighty Margolyes for long!

On another occasion, quite recently, I was at Waverley Station in Edinburgh when my back went into spasm. The pain was too much to bear but there were no empty seats nearby, so I asked this young guy for his seat. He was on the phone and I shouldn’t have interrupted, I realise that, but there was nowhere for me to sit and I really needed to rest my back. I said to this young man, ‘Would you mind if I had your seat?’ ‘What? What? I’m on the phone, for Christ’s sake,’ he snapped. ‘There are seats over there. Go over there!’ Then he went back to his phone conversation.

I had a bottle of water with me. I took off the cap and I poured it on his head. He got up then! A woman saw; she came over and she said, ‘I saw what you did. That’s a common assault! You assaulted that man!’ I said, ‘Madam, I’m in pain and I needed somewhere—’ ‘I don’t care,’ she interrupted. ‘You assaulted that boy. I’m going to get the police.’ She returned with a transport police officer. By now, the young man, just a little bit damp, had disappeared, but I explained what had happened: that I’d emptied some water on the man’s head when he had refused to offer me his seat, to which the officer said, ‘Oh, dear, that doesn’t help matters, does it?’ I agreed, and then I saw that my train was coming in, so I just got up and walked away. The policeman didn’t come after me, and I wasn’t arrested, so in a sense, I got away with it.

Usually I’m quite sweet, but I was so angry with that young man. How dare he! He was at least fifty years my junior. I’ve noticed that the people who do offer their seat are usually women. Men rarely bother; they pretend to be too engrossed in a newspaper to notice if someone needs to sit down. But good manners still matter. You should always be as polite, careful and caring to people as you possibly can be. But if people are nasty and cruel, then fuck it — they’ve got it coming.

My spine may be unstable and my knees are giving up, but I’m not. That’s the benefit of being a character actress. My looks have changed over the years, but as I was never beautiful, I’m no less beautiful now. I get more work, if anything. In the last five years, I’ve co-starred in Frog Stone’s BBC Four sitcom Bucket, in which I played a foul-mouthed and flatulent septuagenarian from hell (NAR — No Acting Required), ticking off my daughter and my bucket list of must-dos before I snuff it. (By the way, that’s an example of the literary term ‘zeugma’, which I’ve always longed to use.)

More recently, I’ve been busy on stage at the Park Theatre in London playing Sydney and the Old Girl, and in Melbourne taking on Maggie Smith’s great hit, The Lady in the Van. (I was so nervous about taking on the role that I went round to Alan Bennett’s house to get his blessing. He reassured me that it didn’t matter I was so short. I’m also realising what is now not possible for someone of my age. There is a sadness in accepting I will now never play Masha in The Three Sisters, for example. But I’d advise everyone to look at the footage of Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies reciting Juliet on TV when she was nearly one hundred years old. It will give you hope.

I’m too old for a lot of things, but I’m not too old for everything. I’ve been fortunate my career has opened up surprisingly well in the last fifteen years. Documentaries have become an important new strand in my professional life. I enjoy talking to complete strangers. When I need to sit on a park bench, I go to where someone’s sitting. Most people like to pounce on an empty bench, but I long for human communion — that to me is Holy Communion. I love talking to people, and asking them questions. They’re giving me a present of their stories. Talking, listening, learning what it’s like to look through the eyes of another soul. That’s what I relish about being a ‘documentary person’.