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Frances de la Tour interview: From Shakespeare to Rising Damp, the actress has lit up stage and TV for 50 years - and found new fans in Vicious

Back in the 1970s, the tv sitcom ‘rising damp’ brought frances de la tour such recognition that she could be forgiven if she’d never been able to move on. but at 70, she continues to flourish - and to beguile, article bookmarked.

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It takes approximately 90 seconds to register that Frances de la Tour is a shocking flirt. As she perches beside me on the sofa in the first-floor bar of the Ivy Club in Soho, her eyes lock on to mine, her expressive mouth widens into a cheerfully on-for-it grin and, as I babble through a chaotic question about her recent adventures, she cuts straight across it and says, fingering the sleeve of my suit: "This is a nice piece of schmatter – is it linen or cotton?"

This year, in which she turns 71, she celebrates 50 years of stage acting at the highest level – at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and in London's West End. She has played classic roles from Chekhov, Webster, Shaw, Albee and Eugene O'Neill as well as the Bard, while descending, from time to time, to the less rarefied level of television comedy. Her major strength is to radiate a slightly weary, seen-it-all romanticism, expressing a perfect balance of disappointment and optimism via that uniquely rich contralto voice. She's equally at home playing tragedy or comedy – you could say that she had a head start, given that she possesses both the most melancholy eyes and the most dazzling smile in British theatre.

In the public consciousness, she is stuck fast in the 1970s with her role in Rising Damp as Miss Ruth Jones, the poodle-haired and breathless object of Leonard Rossiter's urgent desire and seedy gallantry. Their double-act entered the collective cultural memory and stayed there, a fact that does not please De la Tour.

"It's the tombstone thing, isn't it?" she says. "I just know that, when I die, the papers will say, 'Rising Damp Woman Kicks the Bucket'."

To be fair, I say, the 1980 movie version won you Best Actress at the Evening Standard Film Awards. "Oh yes," she says, with a bitter laugh. "I remember. The Standard people got in touch and said, 'You're up for Best Actress in the Film Awards.' I said, 'But I haven't made a film this year.' They said, 'It's for Rising Damp.' I said, 'Oh, that.' It made me laugh so much."

Thirty-five years later, she's playing a different quality of sex object in another TV sitcom, Vicious. The show stars two veteran stage knights, Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi as Freddie and Stuart, a long-term gay couple and sparring partners in a battle of theatrical bitchiness that amuses or horrifies everyone drawn into its orbit. De la Tour plays Violet Crosby, the neighbour who pops in every day (as they do in sitcom-land) to exchange brittle banter with the senior queens and utter cougarish remarks of sleek seductiveness at Ash (Iwan Rheon), the handsome (and straight) 22-year-old boy upstairs.

Remarkably, the show was the joint creation of Mark Ravenhill, the controversial playwright behind Shopping and Fucking and Mother Clap's Molly House, and Gary Janetti, the American TV writer and producer behind Family Guy and Will & Grace. Where fans of both writers might anticipate super-explicit or super-brittle dialogue, Vicious is rather sweetly old-fashioned in its gay bitchery and non-PC idiom. McKellen and Jacobi swish about with a camp extravagance that Kenneth Williams might have found a bit extreme, and relish the exchanges. When Violet is told that there's a strange man (namely Ash) in the gay pair's lavatory, she cries: "You let a complete stranger use your loo? What if he comes out of there and rapes me?" McKellen's mouth twitches in a moue of scorn. "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it," he murmurs.

"I was absolutely delighted to be asked to do Vicious," says De la Tour, "and the people of my generation who were in the studio audience were ever so chuffed to see me." She put her hand modestly on her breast. "I got an entrance round!" Was Gary Janetti a natural to write a sitcom about elderly British gays? "I don't know how he did it," she says, "because it's very English and he is sooo American. But he knows about comedy and the timing of a line, even though he's not an actor."

British critics were divided about the merits of Vicious. The Daily Mail dubbed McKellen and Jacobi "the Steptoe and Son of the gay and thespian community," but the Daily Telegraph called the show "the least funny new comedy in recent years" – and the art critic Brian Sewell described it as "a spiteful parody that could not have been nastier had it been devised and written by a malevolent and recriminatory heterosexual." Astonishingly, though, it went down very well in America.

"The critics here said it was too camp, like Are You Being Served?" De la Tour says. "But over there it broke new ground, because it was about the relationship between two older gay men. It's funny, but it's about a serious gay relationship, and that hadn't been done before. It went out on public TV there, and now there's sponsorship money going into it. That's how much they like it."

The character of Violet is intriguing. She clearly loves the warring partners, but is no fag-hag. She tells them she's disgusted by their physical relationship, and is sharply critical about their toxic tiffs. But she can't keep away. Even when dating unsuitable men whom she's met online, she keeps Freddie and Stuart informed of every twist. "I don't know why Violet and Stuart and Freddie love each other," says De la Tour. "They're awful to her; they'll say, 'You can't have any food' or 'It's about time you left' – but they always welcome her. They provide the sanctuary in her life and the show is all about that."

Violet became more shocking as the first series progressed. In one episode, five million viewers watched De la Tour, now 70, dressed in a leather gimp suit and handcuffed to a bed by an unscrupulous Argentinian lover. In the last episode, when the boy Ash commiserates with Violet and assures her that there's definitely a Big Love out there for her in the world somewhere, Violet slams him against a wall and thanks him with a full-on snog. "Ed [Bye, the director] told me they wanted to show that Violet would go for it," says De la Tour simply. "So I went for it."

In the second series, we'll discover that Violet has married a mystery man, > and that she has a sister (played by Celia Imrie). The episodes will move beyond the cosy interior of Freddie and Stuart's flat, using outside locations in East London. "It was exhausting," says De la Tour, theatrically. "It was so easy in the first series, it was all, 'Darling, come in, sit down, have some tea, leave.' In the second, we had to learn ballroom dancing..."

She was born in 1944 in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. Her father, Charles, a film-maker and scriptwriter, was immensely proud of his family's French connections and, like Tess Durbeyfield's dad in Tess of the D'Urbevilles, liked to accentuate the Gallic strain. Which is why Frances found herself at school at London's Lycée Francais when she was five. She didn't share her father's Francophilia.

"My father was romantic about the name De la Tour; he thought it was aristocratic. He said, 'You ought to be able to speak French, to live up to your name.' But I didn't want to be at the Lycée. It was pretty frightening. You walked in and everything was in French. Sit down in French, have lunch in French, learn English in French. In geography, I knew all about the Massif Central, but nothing about Marble Arch. But really it could have been any school – I was miserable because I just wanted to be with my mum.

"I learned that, like most families, ours was completely mixed. My mother's mother was Irish, Cathleen O'Neill from County Cork. She couldn't read, and she married a wild Greek Macedonian. She was very down-to-earth. She'd say, I don't know why you're at the Lycée, it's only because your father wanted you to go there. I think she loved my dad, but they separated when I was 12. She remarried and I went to a bad private school in Cookham, a little village in Berkshire, where Stanley Spencer the artist came knocking at the door of the house because he liked to know who the neighbours were."

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Her way in to acting was through poetry recitals. De la Tour paints a cruelly unvarnished picture of her young self. "In those days they had elocution classes run by eccentric women who loved acting and the theatre. One was Rita Melene, whom I'm forever thankful to, because she clapped eyes on this shy, gawky, unable to speak, am-I-English-am-I-French, funny little thing with specs and bands on the teeth, and she must have thought, 'Take away the glasses and maybe there's something nice inside.' She entered me for these poetry competitions, judged by people like [the actress] Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. I loved doing poetry. I felt safe because it didn't take too long; you could stand on that stage and dare to speak, and be off a minute later."

What was her voice like before the elocution lessons? "Like Miss Jones's," she says sardonically. "Much higher than it is now." Her characteristic slow drawl, she says, "was all about fear of speaking French or English. You'd approach it gingerly." Did her mother encourage her? "She tried to help me, but she was probably too dominant. She was very beautiful and I was in awe of her, but it didn't make me want to be like her."

Instead, she "withdrew into boyfriends". She had lots of young squeezes between the ages of 14 and 17, and attributes her success to her grandmother's advice. "She told me, 'You got to smell good, you got to laugh, got to make them laugh, and to listen, even if they are boring. But most of all, you got to smell good.' I was wearing Arpege by Lanvin at 16."

Thus equipped to take on the world, she went to drama school at 17, and joined the RSC in 1965 at 21. She had several small roles in the next five years, then hit the jackpot in 1970, as part of the company who staged Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream – the production with the white box, the swings, trapezes, stilts, spinning plates and other manifestations of magic. De la Tour was comedy gold as Helena, derangedly in love with Demetrius. "Ben Kingsley played Demetrius," she said fondly. "He was 27, I was 26. In one scene we did together, I had to keep him onstage at all costs. He kept moving offstage – so I just rugby-tackled him. We'd spent 10 weeks rehearsing the play, and were so familiar with the text that whatever we did physically seemed perfectly okay."

She was, she says, extremely nervous. "Why? Because I was thinking, 'I'm doing Shakespeare. I'm playing a huge part with a visionary director. It's in rhyming couplets. I'm 26. I don't know who I am or what's happening…' But Peter was so loving, very sweet and funny and nice to me. He said, 'Whatever insecurities you're feeling right now, then so is Helena.' At one point, I even sang a few notes – although I can't sing – just to free myself. He liked it so much, he kept it in."

The mid-1960s were a heady time to be a young British actor. Frances de la Tour saw Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith in their finest hour, giving their Othello and Desdemona at the Old Vic. At the same time, the RSC were putting on The Wars of the Roses, a dizzying mash-up of Shakespeare's history plays. At the Aldwych, Peter Daubeny's World Theatre season was in full swing, headed by the Berliner Ensemble.

"It was an astonishing time," she breathes, "to be 19, just about to leave drama school, and going to see every single production we could get to, in the upper circle." Which actresses did she admire? "Oh, Maggie Smith – she was absolutely astonishing in The Beaux' Stratagem, so pretty and she radiated wit in the old sense, meaning intelligence. I saw Vanessa [Redgrave] doing As You Like It and David Warner as Hamlet – and suddenly, it wasn't all about glamorous theatre any more. It was real, with bright lights and no make-up. It was the end of the old school of theatre."

It was also time for a change of acting style. While De la Tour was appearing as Rosalind in As You Like It at the Oxford Playhouse, and Isabella in The White Devil at the Old Vic, she was also appearing in television comedy. She co-starred in the original 1971 cast of The Banana Box, a play by Ian Chappell about a rundown Yorkshire townhouse converted into bedsits by the landlord – one Rupert Rooksby, a grubby, intrusive, miserly, lecherous, right-wing bigot who constantly invades the privacy of his tenants. They include a posh, dreamy spinster and university administrator, and a suave black student who claims to be the son of an African chief. Leonard Rossiter played Rooksby, Don Warrington played the black student and Frances de la Tour the whimsical love object.

After its West End run, a forgotten producer suggested it might make a good sitcom, and Rising Damp was born. With Richard Beckinsale added to the cast as the medical student Alan, and Rossiter's horrible-but-fascinating character re-named Rigsby, it aired in 1974, ran to four series until 1978, and was the highest-ranking ITV sitcom in BBC's 100 Best Sitcoms poll of 2004.

Did De la Tour feel at the time that a sitcom was a bit beneath an RSC actress? "We were just doing it for the money," she says. "I certainly needed the money and if you're offered a TV sitcom, you say 'Yeah, fine.' It was actually a great era for sitcoms. There were at least four other good ones around at the time. But," she adds with a touch of pride amidst her disapproval of the subject, "about 20 million people watched ours."

So she became a TV star! How did that feel? Her lovely eyes frown. "I made a real point," she says evenly, "of having nothing to do with celebrity. There was a show on television called Celebrity Squares, which I was offered. I said, 'I'm not doing it, I'm not doing anything about celebrity.' I went straight into more plays. I did lots of things on the fringe, not earning anything, to continue doing the work that I was trained for."

We seem to have hit an awkwardly serious point in our jolly discussion. I ask about the first scenes she shared onstage with Rossiter. Had his comic timing struck her as a bit…

"Haven't we exhausted Rising Damp by now?" she asks, in that flat rhetorical way that demands the answer "Yes."

I move on. Is she, I ask, a comic actress who can turn her hand to tragedy, or an essentially tragic actress who can sometimes forget herself enough to do comedy? And which is harder?

She recoils as if I'd asked her to recite the Sanskrit alphabet. "How can you throw that at me?" she says crossly. "What kind of question is that? It's like asking, 'Could you please tell me about the essence of quantum physics? And while you're at it, could you explain gravity?" All I meant (I say) was, is it hard to do both?

She seems mollified. "My answer to that is: if you can do comedy, you can do tragedy. If you can do tragedy, you can't necessarily do comedy."

She has won three Olivier Awards: Best Actress for Duet for One (written by her ex-husband Tom Kempinski, by whom she has two grown-up children) in 1980; Best Actress in O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten in 1983; Best Supporting Actress for When She Danced in 1992. But the stage role for which she's been most celebrated is Mrs Lintott, the wry, caustic, funny, close-to-retirement schoolmistress in The History Boys, Alan Bennett's comic-poignant play about a class of teenagers being prepared for Oxbridge by teachers with contrasting attitudes to education.

"Ten years ago, I was in Sydney doing The Dance of Death with Ian McKellen," she recalls. "There were lots of posters for Alan's series of monologues, Talking Heads, with Maggie Smith and Maggie Tyzack. I remember feeling miffed and thinking, 'Why have I never been in an Alan Bennett play?' Well, I went back to the hotel and there was a script from Nick Hytner, who'd recently taken over at the National. It was The History Boys. Before even reading it properly, I'd said yes. And I learned later that Alan had written in the margin of the first script, 'Frances de la Tour to play Mrs Lintott?' They knew before I knew that it was right for me. Sometimes it takes another person to know what you should play."

Had she invented a back-story for Mrs Lintott? "She's honest, I think. She has this line: 'I went to Durham University and I loved it. I had my first pizza there. Other things too, of course, but it's the pizza that stands out.' That says everything about her."

The History Boys was an unexpected smash hit on Broadway. It defied logic that Manhattan playgoers could be beguiled by a drama about British teaching methods that looked kindly upon casual paedophilia and featured a scene conducted entirely in French. De la Tour won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Mrs Lintott. "I absolutely adored it in America," she says, eyes glittering. "Because they didn't know who I was, they thought they'd discovered me. I was like an adopted child. Because New Yorkers are New Yorkers, they'd pick me up in the street and embrace me. Not just the gay community – there were straight guys as well, people so smitten with the show, the characters, and Richard [Griffiths] playing Hector. Paul Newman saw it four times."

She went on chat shows, and found herself fighting off frock designers who wanted her to wear their creations to the Tonys. "I had to have a dress made for me, and I wore black diamonds – something I'd never do for the Oliviers. Of course, you had to make sure to send the diamonds back afterwards…"

Whereupon she rises to her feet and swans off for a flirtatious cigarette up on the roof terrace with her friend Marc Sinden, son of the late Donald. She's too cool and clever to be a diva, but she's an authentic star. And she's moved several aeons beyond the days of Miss Ruth Jones, her seedy Northern bedsit and the wooing strategies of Mr Rupert Rigsby.

The new series of 'Vicious' starts Monday 1 June at 9pm on ITV1

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Anglophenia

British icon of the week: 'rising damp' and 'vicious' actress frances de la tour.

(Photo: Getty Images) Highly regarded actress Frances de la Tour turns 78 Saturday (July 30), so we're giving her an early birthday present by making her our British Icon of the Week. Here are 10 things we appreciate about de la Tour and her impressive career. 1. She made her name in the classic 1970s sitcom Rising Damp . De la Tour played Miss Jones, a high-spirited college administrator who is pursued (not very successfully) by her seedy and small-minded landlord Rigsby ( Leonard Rossiter ). Death in Paradise 's Don Warrington and Richard Beckinsale also starred in the show, which mixed sharp social commentary with physical comedy and zingy one-liners. You can stream all 28 episodes on BritBox.

2. She also made us laugh in Vicious . The ITV/PBS sitcom only ran for two seasons, but it was fun seeing Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi play a couple who love tearing strips off one another. De la Tour was also on top form as their best friend Violet, who's often the butt of the joke but always manages to elegantly shrug it off.

3. She was an original The History Boys cast member. Written by Alan Bennett , this 2004 play about a group of Sheffield schoolboys preparing for their college admissions exams helped to launch the careers of James Corden , Dominic Cooper , Russell Tovey , Sacha Dhawan , and Samuel Barnett . De la Tour starred as their history teacher Mrs. Lintott in the London production, then won a Tony Award when the play transferred to Broadway a couple years later. She also reprised her role in the movie adaptation.

4. She took to Broadway like a duck to water. And not just because she won a Tony. "I absolutely adored it in America," she told The Independent . "Because they didn't know who I was, they thought they'd discovered me. I was like an adopted child. Because New Yorkers are New Yorkers, they'd pick me up in the street and embrace me. Not just the gay community: there were straight guys as well, people so smitten with the show, the characters, and Richard [Griffiths ] playing Hector." 5. She played another teacher in Big School . To be precise, de la Tour played the unconventional headmistress (high school principal) Ms. Baron in this zany BBC sitcom created by  David Walliams . Their co-stars included  Doctor Who favorite Catherine Tate and Life on Mars '  Philip Glenister , so it's well worth checking out. 

6. She's a revered theater actress. In addition to her Tony, de la Tour has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work in London. The first came for her performance as a world-class violinist diagnosed with MS in 1980's Duet for One , a play written by de la Tour's then-husband Tom Kempinski . 7. She takes her craft seriously. In a 2021 interview with the Radio Times , de la Tour shared an interesting theory about her enduring success. "Without theater, I wouldn't have been able to do the television," she said. "They often say if you want longevity in this business, be a theater actor. Because there is a point where producers look for what they call gravitas, which is an actor that has been at it a long time." 8. She was nearly in Love Actually . Richard Curtis ' classic rom-com had so many different plotlines that, sadly, one featuring de la Tour and Anne Reid  didn't make the final cut. Still, this deleted scene gives a glimpse of their touching relationship: it's short, but definitely poignant.

9. She's self-deprecating. So many actors become closely associated with their signature role, but de la Tour isn't afraid to poke fun at this. She told The Independent : "I just know that, when I die, the papers will say, ' Rising Damp Woman Kicks the Bucket.'" 10. She's longtime friends with Maggie Smith. You can check out an adorable photo of them together here . It was taken at the 1994 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, where Smith won the Best Actress award. Do you have a favorite Frances de la Tour role?

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RISING DAMP (1974-78) (Full Series)

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Frances de la Tour

• Born July 30 , 1944 · Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England, UK
• Birth name Frances J De Lautour
• Height 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• Frances de la Tour (born 30 July 1944) is an English actress, known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the television sitcom Rising Damp from 1974 until 1978. She is a Tony Award winner and three-time Olivier Award winner. She performed as Mrs. Lintott in the play The History Boys in London and on Broadway, winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She reprised the role in the 2006 film. Her other film roles include Madame Olympe Maxime in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010). Other television roles include Emma Porlock in the Dennis Potter serial Cold Lazarus (1996), Headmistress Margaret Baron in BBC sitcom Big School and Violet Crosby in the sitcom Vicious. De la Tour was born in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, to Moyra (née Fessas) and Charles de la Tour. The name was also spelt De Lautour, and it was in this form that her birth was registered in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the third quarter of 1944. She has French, Greek, and Irish ancestry. She was educated at London's Lycée Français and the Drama Centre London. She is the sister of actor and screenwriter Andy de la Tour. She has a son and a daughter. An episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, first broadcast on 22 October 2015, revealed De La Tour to be a descendant of the aristocratic Delaval family. After leaving drama school, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1965. Over the next six years, she played many small roles with the RSC in a variety of plays, gradually building up to larger parts such as Hoyden in The Relapse and culminating in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which she played Helena as a comic "tour de force". In the 1970s, she worked steadily both on the stage and on television. Some of her notable appearances were Rosalind in As You Like It at the Playhouse, Oxford in 1975 and Isabella in The White Devil at the Old Vic in 1976. She enjoyed a collaboration with Stepney's Half Moon Theatre, appearing in the London première of Dario Fo's We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay (1978), Eleanor Marx's Landscape of Exile (1979), and in the title role of Hamlet (1980). In 1980, she played Stephanie, the violinist with MS in Duet for One, a play written for her by Kempinski, for which she won the Olivier for Best Actress. She played Sonya in Uncle Vanya opposite Donald Sinden at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1982. Her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten won her another Olivier for Best Actress in 1983. She joined the Royal National Theatre for the title role in Saint Joan in 1984 and appeared there in Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1986. She again won the Olivier, this time for Best Supporting Actress for Martin Sherman's play about Isadora Duncan, When She Danced, with Vanessa Redgrave at the Globe Theatre in 1991 and played Leo in Les Parents terribles at the Royal National Theatre in 1994, earning another Olivier nomination. In 1994, de la Tour co-starred with Maggie Smith in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women at the Wyndham's and with Alan Howard in Albee's The Play About the Baby at the Almeida in 1998. In 1999, she returned to the RSC to play Cleopatra opposite Alan Bates in Antony and Cleopatra, in which she did a nude walk across the stage. In 2004, she played Mrs. Lintott in Alan Bennett's The History Boys at the National and later on Broadway, winning both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She would also later appear in the film version. In December 2005, she appeared in the London production of the highly acclaimed anti-Iraq war one-woman play Peace Mom by Dario Fo, based on the writings of Cindy Sheehan. In 2007, she appeared in a West End revival of the farce Boeing-Boeing. In 2009, she appeared in Alan Bennett's new play The Habit of Art at the National. In 2012, she returned to the National in her third Bennett premiere, People. Her many television appearances during the 1980s and 1990s include the 1980 miniseries Flickers opposite Bob Hoskins, the TV version of Duet for One, for which she received a BAFTA nomination, the series A Kind of Living (1988-89), Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus (1996), and Tom Jones (1997). Of all her TV roles, however, she is best known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire television comedy Rising Damp, from 1974 to 1978. De la Tour told Richard Webber, who penned a 2001 book about the series, that Ruth Jones "was an interesting character to play. We laughed a lot on set, but comedy is a serious business, and Leonard took it particularly seriously, and rightly so. Comedy, which is so much down to timing, is exhausting work. But it was a happy time." Upon reprising her Rising Damp role in the 1980 film version, she won Best Actress at the Evening Standard Film Awards. In the mid-1980s, de la Tour was considered, along with Joanna Lumley and Dawn French, as a replacement for Colin Baker on Doctor Who. The idea was scrapped and the job was given to Sylvester McCoy. In 2003, de la Tour played a terminally ill lesbian in the film Love Actually with the actress Anne Reid, although their scenes were cut from the film and appear only on some DVD releases as a bonus feature. In 2005, she portrayed Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a role she reprised in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1. Notable television roles during this time include Agatha Christie's Poirot: Death on the Nile (2004), Waking the Dead (2004), the black comedy Sensitive Skin (2005), with Joanna Lumley and Denis Lawson, Agatha Christie's Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) and New Tricks as a rather morbid Egyptologist, also in 2006. She was nominated for the 2006 BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role for her work on the film version of The History Boys. She later appeared in several well-received films, including Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland as Aunt Imogene, a delusional aunt of Alice's, opposite Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Mia Wasikowska and a supporting role in the film The Book of Eli, directed by the Hughes brothers. In 2012, she appeared in the film Hugo. Until 2012, she was also a patron for the performing arts group Theatretrain. From 2013 to 2016, de la Tour played the role of Violet Crosby in ITV sitcom Vicious (2013) with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi . From 2013 to 2014, she portrayed headmistress Ms Baron in the BBC One sitcom Big School. In April 2016, she joined the second series of _Outlander_as Mother Hildegarde. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
• Spouses Tom Kempinski (1972 - 1982) (divorced) David Godman (1968 - ?) (divorced)
• Parents Charles de la Tour Moyra de la Tour
• Relatives Andy de la Tour (Sibling)
• At the height of 5' 7" she has played a giant in the films Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Into the Woods (2014) .
• Had her scenes from Love Actually (2003) cut from the final film. They feature in the DVD extras. She played the lesbian lover of the school headmistress played by Anne Reid .
• Has two children by unknown fathers - a son and a daughter.
• She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1992 (1991 season) for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in "When She Danced".
• She was awarded the 2006 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Mrs. Lintott in Alan Bennett's "The History Boys" on Broadway in New York City.
• I didn't think that Rising Damp (1974) would have quite the longevity it's enjoying actually. At the time we knew it was good because it was very well written by Eric Chappell , and he wrote characters as well as situations. In fact, very little situation happens in this particular situation comedy, it's character based. And we knew it was good but there were a lot of very popular and good sitcoms in the seventies. You could name at least five. It became more popular years later, five, ten years, even then 20 years and people started calling it a classic. But it's like we left it behind and it never died.

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Don Warrington: 'I can be angry. I can want to kill'

He’s done everything from Rising Damp to All My Sons and Holby. But now Don Warrington is facing the biggest challenge of his career: playing Lear. He talks about becoming a Geordie, wanting to be Brando – and why England has never felt like home

D on Warrington is remembering crying in London’s Old Vic when he was a drama student. “I hadn’t seen much Shakespeare. I didn’t know anything about anything really.” On stage was Eric Porter as King Lear. “I sat there and I thought, ‘That miserable old git,’ but he was breaking my heart.”

Nearly half a century later, Warrington is to play the heartbreaking old git in a production directed by Michael Buffong, artistic director of Talawa , Britain’s leading black theatre company. As we chat over samosas and deep-fried okra in an Indian restaurant, Warrington looks serene and sartorially elegant. But nearly everything he says speaks of his trepidation about taking on the role.

“The nicest thing about any job is being offered it,” he says. “Then the reality begins to dawn. Suddenly we have dates! I can feel my blood pressure rising.” He was offered the part after his critically hailed performance in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at Manchester’s Royal Exchange two years ago. “At the time it seemed crazy to say no. Now I wonder if I’m just crazy.”

He and Buffong recently went to see Simon Russell Beale play Lear at the National. “I thought ‘Is this for me?’ Those are big shoes...” He won’t be drawn on whether playing Lear is a bigger challenge than Strictly Come Dancing in 2008 (he went out in week five after losing a dance-off with Heather Small) but both clearly put him out of his comfort zone.

Warrington is only 63 and Lear, he points out, is supposed to be 80. Did he wonder what they were thinking when they cast him? “I always feel, ‘What were they thinking?’ In this case, though, I don’t think it’s a matter of age, because lots of young actors have played him. Paul Scofield was in his 40s. The energy it requires is not necessarily an old man’s energy. I’m not an old man.”

Warrington has previous played disempowered, ageing men. He made his well-received directorial debut at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds with Mustapha Matura’s Rum and Coca Cola , a comedy about the three times winner of Trinidad’s coveted Calypso King crown reduced to busking on beaches. And two years ago, he was Joe Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons , an industrialist whose firm was accused of knowingly supplying faulty aircraft parts to the military during the second world war.

Let’s not forget either Warrington’s turn on BBC2’s Grumpy Old Men. You’ve long been in training to play Lear, I tell him. “You see none of this has occurred to me! He [Keller] was king of his castle or he wanted to be. But he had committed a sin. You could say that Lear commits a sin in that he does a very stupid thing – giving his kingdom away as a test to his children.

“The big question is why does he do it? And I don’t know the answer to that yet. Maybe he’s got Alzheimer’s – which makes him speak to us now because it’s what most of us dread. And then why does he insist his daughters say they love him as a condition for getting their share of his kingdom? He’s putting himself in a position where they might say, ‘We don’t love you, you’re a fucking old tyrant’.”

Does any of it resonate as a father of two sons? “Am I an old tyrant? Well, you’d have to ask my family about that. I’m sure they’ll have a whole variety of opinions. No, I don’t think so. He’s not me but he can be some of me. I can be angry, I can want to kill people.”

Don Warrington was born in Trinidad , and might still be there but for the fact that his father, Basil Kydd, a local politician, died suddenly aged 48 in 1958 when Don was six. His mother, Shirley, decided to make a new life in England. It took three weeks to cross the Atlantic. “England was a real disappointment if I’m honest. It was painted in the colonies as this beautiful, golden, bright place and it was absolutely the opposite.”

In Newcastle, he and his brother were the only black kids in school: “I got called rude names but I’d stand up for myself. I became a Geordie and got nicknamed the Young Pele because I was good at football. The teachers were worse. One teacher thought he should stop me being left handed and asked if I’d learned to write up a tree.”

Being uprooted from his birthplace has given him a lifelong sense of loss. “My mother’s generation had protection their children didn’t have because they were adults when they left. We didn’t have a map, we had to make a new one, a new map of how to exist.” So that’s what he did. “I saw On the Waterfront and wanted to be Marlon Brando. I thought I looked like him and I wanted to be just like that.”

Aged 17, he got his first job at Flora Robson Playhouse as an assistant stage manager, then moved to London to train at the Drama Centre. Soon after graduation he landed the role of town planning student Philip Smith in Eric Chappell’s play The Banana Box. By this stage, he had discovered there was another actor called Don Williams (he used his mother’s maiden name) – and so named himself after Newcastle’s Warrington Road, where he was raised.

In The Banana Box, he starred opposite seedy landlord Rupert Rigsby played by Leonard Rossiter. When Chappell adapted his play as the TV sitcom Rising Damp in 1974, the two men reprised their roles, and Warrington became one of the most prominent black actors on British TV.

At the time, Eric Chappell’s sitcom was a departure. In the 1970s there were scarcely any black performers on television. This was the era in which Lenny Henry performed with the Black and White Minstrels and Rudolf T Walker was called “sambo” by Jack Smethurst in Love Thy Neighbour. Warrington’s role was a breakthrough because Smith was enviable rather than ridiculous. Indeed, Smith was everything the landlord wanted to be – suave, well spoken and, most importantly, desirable to fellow tenant Miss Jones.

“I knew the world of Rising Damp because I grew up surrounded by white people and was used to prejudice,” Warrington says now. “But I never expected it to catch fire like that.” If Warrington hasn’t quite emerged from the long shadow cast by the sitcom, it’s not for want of trying. His TV credits include, C.A.T.S Eyes, Morse, New Street Law, Trial and Retribution, Manchild, Holby City, Casualty and Doctor Who. On stage he has worked a great deal with Talawa, and has also starred in two fine National Theatre productions of plays by Kwame Kwei-Armah, Elmina’s Kitchen and Statement of Regret . He has been one face of Kenco coffee in TV ads, but let’s not hold that against him. In 2008, he was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to drama.

Are you glad your mother brought you to England? “That’s a tricky one. I can’t honestly say that I feel that. Because that journey she made with her children has had the most profound effect. I wonder what I left behind.” Do you go back to Trinidad to find out? “I didn’t for a long time, I didn’t want to because I was scared about what it would do. When I did, I remembered things – tastes, smells. So at a very basic level, the body had carried that sense memory.”

He has a sister who remained in Trinidad. “When I see her I recognise something in her I would like to be. I feel a kind of loss, which is her absolute sense of knowing the ground on which she stands.”

You don’t feel that in England?

“I don’t. Until we can all believe that England is ours, until we can feel part of the fabric, we will feel this slight distance between us and where we live. There will always be another place that is home.”

• Don Warrington plays King Lear from 1 April at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, and from 19 May at Birmingham Repertory Theatre
• British identity and society
• William Shakespeare
• Don Warrington
• Black British culture

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Frances de la Tour on ITV drama Professor T, the future of the theatre industry and voicing the Queen

The veteran actor takes on the role of Adelaide Tempest in the new ITV detective series.

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In a career that has spanned more than five decades, Frances de la Tour has appeared on our screens in a huge variety of roles. She first made her name as Miss Ruth Jones in '70s sitcom Rising Damp, then became known to a new audience as Madame Maxime in the Harry Potter films, and more recently starred alongside Sirs Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi in the hit sitcom Vicious.

Her most recent role is in Professor T , a detective drama adapted from a Belgian series of the same name, which is currently airing on Sunday nights on ITV. In the show, de la Tour plays Adelaide Tempest, the overbearing mother of Ben Miller's titular criminologist, and it's a character that she had a whale of a time playing.

"She's a wonderful character, because... well, she's monstrous, really!" she tells RadioTimes.com over the phone. "Which also makes her very funny.

"But it's dark. I think fundamentally, it's because it was originally a Belgian series," she continues. "And I love those what we call Scandi noirs or, you know, the Walter Presents dramas. He gives us all these incredibly dark but interesting series and characters.

"And the character of Professor T himself is astonishingly complex, so the mother and the son is a powerful relationship. I mean, they're very dependent on each other and love each other, and fight each other. So the part did offer a lot of avenues to explore and to enjoy."

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Of course, a detective series with a flawed central character is no new thing – and indeed Miller has compared his character to both Sherlock Holmes and Dexter – but de la Tour reckons that there is enough fresh appeal to Professor T to make it stand out from the crowd.

"I think in a way, you have to have that flaw somewhere in the character," she says. "And there have been many, like Cracker and all sorts of really great TV things, where there are main characters that have problems, whether it is alcohol or terrible relationship with their wives or something like that.

"But this is unusual, because he's got OCD and that can be very funny but it's also tough," she continues. "And I think you see both sides, you see that it's incredibly tough for him to think like ordinary people, for want of a better word. But also, you know, it gives scope to be very different."

Naturally, the role required working very closely with Miller, but she said that the mother/son dynamic was easy to get a handle on, in part because the former Death in Paradise star was so "wonderful" to work with.

"He was a real leader," she says. "But he never sort of threw his weight around or anything like that, he was just very caring about the whole thing. And he's very quiet. He said, let's just go to another room and rehearse this for a few minutes, which we did with the director, and found all sorts of lovely layers.

"And once you've done the first scene, and you've explored it then it seeds the next scene. And you just have to tell yourself, this is not what we do in theatre. In theatre you have four/five weeks of rehearsal so you can start from a blank page and very slowly start colouring in. But in television or film, you have to guide it. And really, they're almost two separate crafts."

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If there's anyone who knows about working in both of those crafts then it's de la Tour. Throughout an extensive stage career, she's won three Olivier Awards and a Tony, and she says that, while finding the balance between the two forms is very important to her, it's theatre that has provided her with the basis for her career.

"I've spent my life in the theatre, mainly," she says. "I know all actors get known for a successful television thing, but that's not our lives. I'm old now, I mean, I've spent 55 years doing it, and I would say 45 of those years were on stage.

"And without theatre, I wouldn't have been able to do the television," she continues. "They often say if you want longevity in this business, be a theatre actor. Because there is a point where producers look for what they call gravitas, which is an actor that has been at it a long time. And yes, you can spend your whole life on screen there's no question about it. But personally, I don't know anything different other than thinking about what it would be like on stage."

While the film and TV industry has certainly had to take some hits in the last year, it's nothing compared to what the theatre business has had to deal with – and indeed de la Tour herself admits that at times it's felt like the industry was "dying on its feet".

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But with restrictions seemingly coming to an end, does she feel optimistic that the theatres around the country will make a full recovery? "It's all about money isn't it," she says. "There will be private money put into commercial theatre, because that's how they work. And I'm sure a lot of people with a lot of money will continue to do that.

"But my worry was subsidised theatre. Because all reps are subsidised, The National Theatre is subsidised, the RSC is subsidised. I was worried about what we call the fringe theatres – you know all the small, many, many theatres like The Southwark Playhouse and The Trafalgar and The Almeida, all those who are desperate for funding.

"And most of us now have local theatres. I live quite near Finsbury Park and there's the Park Theatre which does some wonderful stuff. And you just think' Oh, please don't let that die', because that is where actors like Ben and myself, that's where we all learnt our craft.

"So I hope so, but I do think they need a bit more support. I think the government... you know it's difficult to get governments to really understand the urgency and the needs that people have for entertainment of all kinds."

For her part, de la Tour has done her bit to help keep the industry afloat; earlier this year she participated in a project called Still Life for the Nottingham Playhouse, which was billed as "a piece of digital theatre telling the tales of the city we love." The project consisted of a series of Zoom monologues shot at various locations around Nottingham – several of them written and performed by emerging talent – with all the proceeds going directly to the theatre. De la Tour performed a brand new piece that had been penned specially by Alan Bennet for the series, and she described it as a "lovely experience."

"I mean, it's a slight contradiction in terms because you're not watching it live," she says. "But I was thrilled. I mean, it was the first bit of acting I did since COVID began, and of course, I knew Alan's work very well. And Adam [Penford, director] and his cameraman and soundman came to my house and we moved the furniture around and we filmed it. And then I saw it and I thought, 'Oh this does look like a proper little film,' even though it was incredibly short."

On the whole, though, de la Tour doesn't think it should just be left to those who work in the industry to keep it going – and she reckons that a lot more could be done not just by the government but also by some of the huge companies that have profited from the pandemic.

"I do think more can be done by people with a lot of money who became very rich through COVID – you know, the big people like Apple and Google and Amazon – and all those because they are so rich," she says. "There's an awful lot of money that could be spent by very rich, not just billionaires but trillionaires. But instead, they go to the moon. What can you do?"

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Next up for de la Tour is a different role entirely – she'll be voicing a version of the Queen in Gary Janetti's animated satire The Prince. She previously worked with the American writer on the aforementioned Vicious, and she says it was a joy to reunite with him.

"That was hysterical," she says. "The actual animation is hysterical and also what Gary's written, and it's brutal about the Royal Family. What can I say? I better not say anymore, I don't think, or we'll be heading for the tower!"

Professor T airs on Sundays at 9pm on ITV. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide or visit our dedicated Drama hub.

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RISING DAMP The Movie! The Making of…

The omj magazine questionnaire 1995.

• DEREK NEWARK – Hard as Nails
• EPISODE GUIDE – Quick Overview

CREATING AN EPISODE – A Weekly Schedule.

It was my intention to start this new website with an exclusive new interview with Eric Chappell. I had planned a trip back to the UK in June with the hope of arranging a meeting with Eric but, sadly, he passed away on April 21, 2022 in Gratham, he was 88.

Michael Coveney wrote a fitting tribute to Eric in the Guardian, here’s a link: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/25/eric-chappell-obituary

In turn, I posted my short tribute to Eric in the comments.

Back in the early 90s, I reached out to Eric Chappell as I was planning a commemorative magazine based on Rising Damp. Eric was so amused that he had found another fan that he was incredibly supportive of my venture and provided as much as he could, including the script of his favourite Rising Damp episode, All Our Yesterdays – this was his first deviation from The Banana Box. In an interview I did with him years back for my magazine, he wrote, “I thought if I could complete this one I could write the series.” He did, and then three more! And he shared his moral: “Discover what you do best and do it.”

Eric created one of TVs greatest comedic characters in Rigsby, the likes of which we will not see again. I think he said it best when he noted, “When I wrote it I thought it was just another show but now it has become part of our national heritage.”

Knowing of Eric’s involvement with my magazine, cast and crew provided wonderful stories and recollections of working on the sitcom. Some still have my magazine and Eric liked it so much he bought another four copies. He even sent me the script he completed for a new stage version of Rising Damp.

I promoted Rising Damp and the work of Eric Chappell for many years on various projects. With a planned trip back to the UK this month, I was hoping to interview Eric for my new Rising Damp archive.

I am truly grateful for his support and encouragement throughout my work.

Thank you for all the laughs, Eric.

Since the beginning of my research back in 1994, many people have been involved in my ongoing research and projects relating to Rising Damp – “Oh…Miss Jones!” A Souvenir Magazine, “Oh…Miss Jones!” The Official Rising Damp Website, Rising Damp – The Stage Play, ‘Unforgettables …Leonard Rossiter’, ‘The Complete A-Z of Rising Damp – unpublished book’.

For this website I’ve tried to include many original items that I privately own, namely the rare Publicity kit sent out in the 70s to promote the new series, original YTV programme reviews, along with a number of original stills and press packs. As with my previously published ‘Official’ website from the early 2000s, all copyright from the script is property Eric Chappell’s, with the video footage now in ITV’s ownership and any third party that may now lay claim to printed / broadcasted items. As such, please reach out to me direct at [email protected] and I will be happy to note any copyright missing from the site.

Whilst this list is just a snapshot of those who’ve made the journey with me, many friends and comedy lovers over the years have also provided interesting facts and information related to the series. To this day, my research continues, albeit with more relative ease than the days of scanning the micro fiche at my local library, calling agents, sending letters and scouring second hand bookshops for rare and out of print publications.

Now, 25 years later, I’m back unearthing many gems in my archive to publish here as the most comprehensive guide to the sitcom.

To this day I am still very thankful that Eric Chappell showed such an interest in my project to commemorate Rising Damp with a new, souvenir magazine “Oh…Miss Jones!”, whilst informing me that I was one of 2 devoted fans of the series!

Eric gave up time in his busy schedule to help support me and my research, pointing me in the right direction of useful sources of reference (David Taylor), sending me his script of his favourite episode ‘All Our Yesterdays’, and providing an interview to my friend Zak. He was so pleased with the magazine, he even ordered 4 extra copies…and paid for them!

In the early 2000s, Eric also passed me the new version of Rising Damp – The Stage Play, and wished me luck in producing it…see the Stage Play section of the website for more news on how that went.

I was and still am extremely appreciative of Eric’s support.

THANK YOU to everyone involved in my work, especially to Zak Newland, David C. Taylor (research re-produced with kind permission), Paul Kaye, Derren Litten, Roger Angell, Robert Ross, Richard Webber, Bob Fischer, Miranda Hodgson, Richard Ashman, Leon Hunt.

THE CAST & CREW: Frances de la Tour, Don Warrington, John Clive, Helen Fraser, Judy Buxton, Christopher Strauli, Roger Brierley, Peter Jeffrey, Robin Parkinson, Paula Wilcox, Peter Bowles, Deborah Watling, David Swift and Producer / Directors Ronnie Baxter and Vernon Lawrence. All were extremely kind and co-operative in completing questionnaires, signing stills and forwarding fond memories of the series.

Of course, the passing of time has meant that a number of our beloved cast members mentioned above have passed on. We think of them with much happiness, bringing much laughter to their respected episodes.

My thanks also to Gillian and Camilla Raine who fully supported my project from the start, and sent some wonderful notes of encouragement.

And finally, a very special note to Judy Buxton who, after 20 years, still has her copy of my souvenir magazine from 1995. Upon asking to appear in the Rising Damp Forever documentary in 2016, Judy presented “Oh…Miss Jones!” to the producer! Thank you Judy.

Enjoy the website and please keep checking back as this website will grow and grow as I go through my archive, and please get in touch if you have any information you would like to share on the series.

• HELLO YOUNG LOVERS
• INTRODUCTION

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