This Much Is True

Barbara Windsor was fabulous. Of course, she’s famous for her Carry On films, but before that she had been part of Joan Littlewood’s company at Stratford East and loved theatre. She announced at our first conversation: ‘Miriam, I’m a star.’ And pointed to the gold star affixed to her dressing-room door. I asked her about the Krays, whom she had known when they ran London crime. ‘They were gentlemen,’ she said. ‘When I came into the room, they stood up.’ She knew she was special but she worked hard and took her work seriously. She gave an interview to the Observer during our rehearsals. I love this extract: ‘ «Well, dear,» said Miss Windsor, «I’ve always voted Conservative, if that’s what you mean. Most actors do.» She said that apart from Jennie Lee, Labour governments were bad for the profession: they stuck the prices up. «Of course, we all know Vanessa’s a raving socialist, but she’s a lovely girl, so you just don’t mention E. Heath in her company.» «Brecht?» «No, dear, I don’t know him. We used to call Joan Littlewood „Mother Courage“. „Barb,“ she’d say, „you must do me a bit of Brecht one day. It would be nice for you.“»’

I’d never been an understudy before, but I learnt my lines dutifully and they made a costume for me, as I was much fatter than Ba. Our understudy rehearsals were run by Keith Hack, whom I’d known at Cambridge. He used to rehearse us in the Stalls Bar at the back of the auditorium.

One day, as I turned up at the stage door on the Saturday before the matinee, relaxed and happy, the stage manager grabbed me and said, ‘Miriam, you’re on.’ I thought he was joking. I said, ‘Stop it. Don’t do that to me.’ He said, ‘No, really, Miriam, you are. You have to go now and get your costume sorted. Barbara has a sore throat. She’s off till Monday, so you’ll have two shows to do.’

I wanted to die. I was terrified. I did know the part, but I nearly shat myself. Then I thought, ‘Come on, you’re a professional.’ I stopped shaking and started thinking fast. I said, ‘Right, I had better run through the music.’ They offered me Ba’s dressing room with the star on the door, but I wanted my own surroundings. Vanessa came to my dressing room as I was getting dressed and said, ‘Miriam, what would you like me to do? I’m here to help; just tell me anything you need.’ I asked her if we could run through the songs (never my strong suit), and we did. She was and is the loveliest person, a superb colleague, a generous company member. I raced through the songs and checked the costume still fitted, all the time muttering the lines to myself as my dresser buttoned me in.

Standing in the wings just before the curtain went up, I heard that awful groan when the front-of-house manager announced that Barbara was indisposed and her understudy would take on the role. I thought, ‘Fuck it. I’ve got to show them. They’ve paid! I’ve got to give them something.’ And I did — I don’t know how I did it, but I did whatever I had to do.

The audience is always told that an understudy is making their first appearance in a role. At the curtain call, Vanessa led me forward to take my own bow. She also brought a bottle of champagne to my dressing room at the end of the evening. Vanessa is like that; she takes people for meals, she cooks — she’s a proper mother of a company. It’s true that her politics frighten some people — not me. I know she’s not an antisemite, that she has a heart of gold and a shrewd head. Ba loved Vanessa: ‘I know she talks posh and all that, but she’s really nice!’

I did the show for the two performances. On the following Monday, when Barbara came back, she came to my dressing room and said, ‘I heard you was really good the other night, Miriam. I better watch myself with you. I’m not going off again and no mistake.’ And she never did.

Through the years I met Ba again — we were both friends of Kenneth Williams — and she was always warm and loving to me. She had an innocence and a vitality which was irresistible and when she died recently, I wept. I felt, along with the rest of England, that I had lost a friend. Her husband, Scott Mitchell, truly loved her and took care of her. At last, she found the man she deserved.

Looking back, I don’t think it was a very good show. I phoned my friend in Canada, Robert Cushman, who is a critic and was at Cambridge with me. I knew he’d tell me honestly; he did. But the show sold well, it was enormous fun to be in; and at last, I was a working actress in the West End.

When a Play Goes Wrong: The White Devil

Sometimes a production goes wrong and nothing can fix it. In interviews, if I’m ever asked about my worst-ever professional experience, without any hesitation or deviation, I say: John Webster’s The White Devil at the Old Vic with Glenda Jackson in 1976.