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THEATRE ARCHIVE PROJECT http://sounds.bl.uk Rose, Pamela – interview transcript Interviewer: Zoë Wilcox 17 April 2013 Summary (Susan) Pamela Rose née Gibson, actor, on: her career prior to 1945 and return to the stage in her 80s, Webber Douglas drama school, Mercury Theatre, playing Pegeen Mike in The Playboy of the Western World opposite Cyril Cusack and Máire O’Neill, repertory theatre, bombing of Birmingham Rep in World War II, ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association), Bletchley Park, marriage to Jim Rose, the National Theatre, the star system, vocal training/performance, early experiences of theatre-going, Ivor Novello, John Gielgud in Richard of Bordeaux, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, Ben Greet’s Shakespearean performances, race relations, teaching Caribbean immigrant children at North Paddington comprehensive. ZW: The date is the 17th of April 2013. This is Zoë Wilcox of the British Library and I’m here in the home of Pam Rose – Pamela Rose? PR: That’s right. ZW: And if you wouldn’t mind just spelling your name for us before we start properly. PR: Yes. Well, my name is really Susan, the name I was christened with is Susan Pamela, born Gibson. But I married Jim Rose, and so now my name is Susan Pamela Rose R-O-S- E. ZW: Lovely. And we’re going to be talking today for an interview that will go into the Theatre Archive Project. So I wondered if you start from the very beginning and tell us where you were born and when? PR: Well, starting at the very beginning, I was born in 1917 and my father at that time of course, like everyone else, was a soldier but he had been a singer before the war. And my mother had also been a singer, or wanted to be a singer, and once she got married to my father in 1913 she was able, after the war, to become a singer, because her parents weren’t very keen on it. But therefore we had a certain amount of theatre in our blood and from the age of about 3 or 4 onwards it was sure for me that I was going on http://sounds.bl.uk Page 1 of 21 Theatre Archive Project the stage. We played a lot of acting games. I had one brother, he was very musical, and he liked singing games. But mostly I was acting and if no one would act with me, I was acting by myself. So naturally when I grew up I wanted to go to a drama school, because that seemed the best way then of getting on the stage, although had I been born a little earlier I probably would have attached myself to a theatre company, if I could get anyone to take me, as a sort of dogsbody. That’s what I’ve heard of people doing a bit earlier. But there were already a few theatre schools in... when did I go? 1935 or ’36, I’m not sure which. And I went for two years. I simply loved it. I can’t… I’m trying to think. The people who’d been there just before me were… What was his name? Jimmy Smith. I’m trying to think of the famous names. There weren’t so very many famous people at that time who’d been to Webber Douglas - which was originally started to teach opera singers to act, because opera singers never learnt to act in the old days. They just came on and sang their arias really. And that was the original purpose of the school, but then the acting side became much more paying than the other side and grew and, by the time I got there, was really larger than the singing side, although they did have their own little operatic company called the Chanticleer company. And, well then I must have left, I suppose I left the theatre, left the… Webber Douglas in 1938 - ‘7? - ‘8? - yes ‘8. And the first thing I did was, I got a job, the very first job I got, didn’t last very long I’m sorry to say, because we had end-of-term shows of course. And after my last end-of-term show I was offered two jobs. One job was at the Mercury Theatre, which was run by Ashley Dukes, and which was a sort of, like an Off-Broadway theatre, fringe I think you call it now, a fringe theatre, where they did quite good experimental and less well-known things. And I was also offered a job by—who was it?—Owen Nares, to act in a play called something Day. I can’t remember the name of the day even – for a very good reason: that we were due to rehearse two days after I left my drama school, but we had a terrific party on the last night, and I’m sorry to say I rather overdid it at the party, and when I went to the next—the first—rehearsal the next day. I should of course have been studying all night and having a good look at the part, instead of which I had been having fun and so when I went to the rehearsal I did extremely badly. I’d never read in front of such distinguished actors before. I’m trying to think of the names of them but I can’t remember anyone except Owen Nares, and his son Geoffrey Nares was supposed to be acting opposite me but he hadn’t arrived yet. And Kenneth Kent, I think, was supposed to be producing it, directing it—but we called it producing in those days funnily enough. And at the end of the day they came up to me and said ‘I’m very sorry dear, I think we’ve made a mistake. You haven’t really got the experience to do a West End show yet.’ Of course they were perfectly right but I felt dreadful and I knew it was because I hadn’t tried hard enough. I thought about going and flinging myself in the Thames. I walked in that direction in fact, but I smelt some coffee on the way and I’ve always been very fond of coffee so I went in to have a cup of coffee first and that changed my mind. I thought, after all there is another job that I could go to. So I went home and rang up Ashley Dukes and said, and said… you know, ‘Can I accept the job you offered me?’ And he said, ‘Come along. We start rehearsing next week. I’m not quite sure which part we’re going to give you yet but we’ll see at the rehearsal.’ Well, I was so thrilled to have a job that I was very happy, went back and told my parents and they didn’t know much about the other job so it was quite all right. And that was really the beginning of my career. The first play we did… I’ve got a cutting of this here because I can’t remember for the moment because.... Over her I’ve got some papers. ZW: Ok. Yes. Let me get them. http://sounds.bl.uk Page 2 of 21 Theatre Archive Project PR: Not that but the ones on the chair. ZW: OK. PR: Sorry. There’s... I found a copy of Punch. Could you remind me what that is? ZW: I’m just picking up a large pile of papers. We’ve got some photographs and some photocopies— Oh yes. That’s right. That’s right, yes. Because I’ve kept everything that I’ve ever ever …. That’s it. This one here. And I can’t read it. But there was Shaw’s Man of Destiny, in which I played the woman, the young girl who pretends to be a lieutenant. And then the other one was a Russian play. What was it called? Squaring the Circle, I’ve got it. Squaring the Circle. I can’t remember who it’s by, some Russian. About the sort of present state of Russia really. There was someone called Donald Eccles in it and Robert Sampson and Kate Kinnear and myself I think. There were four of us. And I’m sorry to say I don’t know what’s happened to any of them but I expect they’re all dead since I’m now 95. But, anyhow, it was great fun. It was a double bill. And it ran and while we were doing that Ashley told me that we were going to do was The Playboy of the Western World. And he’d like to see if I could play the, whatshername, the heroine in Playboy of the Western World? ZW: Pegeen PR: I’m going mad. Pegeen Mike, that’s right. Pegeen Mike. And so towards the end of the run, I don’t remember how many weeks it ran for but I think it was about twelve. And then… and of course at the same time in the Mercury, Madame Rambert was having her ballet company and they used… we gave performances all the week and she gave performances with the ballet company on Sundays. So it was great fun because we got to know all the ballet people. And I was thrilled. And then the next production we did at the Mercury was in fact The Playboy of the [Western] World. And in that was Cyril Cusack, Breffni O’Rourke, Máire O’Neill, a lot of very distinguished Irish players really.
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