THETIMESThursdayDecember102009 THETIMESThursdayDecember102009 arts times2 615 MAIN IMAGE: CHRIS HARRIS FOR THE TIMES plots,castles,gettingbanished,butafterPe- ter I played Electra. It felt right to act it. It wasn’t like I was acting out my grief but I certainly felt it expunged. Up to that point The odd couple — acting had been a facility,after it,it became a reality. With a part like that you’re com- municating the private sorrows of an audi- ence. I am very interested in playing a psy- chologist next, to be the recipient of some- and the other guy oneelse’sstoriesratherthantheteller.” What about Lady Macbeth: she hasn’t Rachel Campbell- doneheryet?“Ijustmight,”shesaysquizzi- cally. “Alan Rickman asked me recently, Johnston goes to a ‘Whatever happened to us doing the Mac- beths?’” What? Those two as Mr and Mrs party thrown by M?Bestillourbeating. . . As for the insane Harry Potter slip- three artists with stream, she is almost dismissive. “Harry Melling, the young man who plays my son little in common he’ll be going up ladders again. My mum Fiona Shaw, left, near to in Mother Courage, plays my son in Potter visits him every day” — she smiles — home base on Primrose (they are Petunia and Dudley Dursley re- “apart from her days off in France.” She Hill; as Harry Potter’s spectively), and we’re the poor relations. Visual Art notes my stricken expression. “As a family Aunt Petunia (with We never do any magic, we have it done to wehaveratheraperfunctoryattitudetoill- Harry Melling and us. The odd thing is leaving the set and to Sargent, Sickert, ness. Myfatherwas an eye surgeonand my Richard Griffiths), see 3,000 people march on: 1,000 children, Spencer mother,byeducation,aphysicist.” above; and as Bertolt 1,000 parents and 1,000 minders. Alan Fitzwilliam Museum, The Shaw house was filled with music. Brecht’s Mother Rickman and Maggie Smith sit there for “My mother adores singing and plays pi- Courage at the National hourswaitingforthemtofilein.Honestly,I Cambridge ano. My uncle was a phenomenal pianist. get more recognised for Three Men and a HHHII My brother John is a double bassist. I used LittleLadythan HarryPotter.” to play the piano, badly, and cello. My Shaw is single, “very happily” (this after small exhibition fresh pointsof interest andsuggesting also, brotherPeterplayedviolin.” newspaper reports linking her with the ac- called Sargent, perhaps,alternative anglesof approach. It sounds idyllic, especially as the family tress Saffron Burrows; she won’t confirm Sickert, Spencer This show cannot present any of home was grand, but it wasn’t. “Like a lot of ordenythis).She’snotdatingorparticular- opened in Cam- Sargent’s grand drawing-room dramas Irish households we read a lot of Irish his- lyrelationship-focusedandtalks aboutliv- bridge on Tues- because the Fitzwilliam doesn’t have any tory. It was almost Soviet, raising the next ing in a “community of people” in Prim- day. It’s the first of initscollection.AndofallSickert’sfamous- generation with a mythic view of their his- rose Hill and feeling “safe and content”. a series of shows ly macabre Camden Town nudes the tory.” She was raised a Roman Catholic, She has been friends with Warner ever that set out to illu- museum’s Mornington Crescent Nude (de- “which I had zero interest in in the first sincetheygotofftoabadstartwhenWarn- minate the “hid- tail pictured) is probably the only one in place and it was enforced by people with er directed her in a play at the Edinburgh den depths” of the whichthegirlispresentedasbeautiful.She zeroeducation —not agreat combination. Festival in 1981.“When itwas suggested we Fitzwilliam Museum’s fine collection. But sinks into her mattress with its crumpled At least we were privileged enough not to work together eight years later we both Awhy these three painters? What do they sheets, her pale flesh picked out by pointil- be caught in the Church’s power structure. thought the other wouldn’t really want to. have in common? Or have they been listetouches ofalmostdiaphanous light. The Catholics believed only they were She’s amazing, a great inspiration and the assembled because their names have a So where does this leave the spectator? going to Heaven and I would ask my Dad, first personI’d call ifIneededto.” nicelyalliterativering? The answer, perhaps, is with the sort of ‘DoyoureallythinkthatMuslimsandHin- All through her thirties, Shaw says, she As a booklet accompanying the show wandering, semi-distracted glances that dus aren’t?’ The Catholic Church told you “suffereddaily”asthetimeforhavingchild- makes clear, these artists, for all that they might not have occurred had some main whattothinkandwhattofeel.” ren came and receded. “I think I am very were working in Britain in the same era — argumentbeenmoreforcefullydriven.Sar- Shaw was also “frightened” of her (half- old-fashioned.I’dwanttodoitinasconven- the late 19th and early 20th centuries — gent’sportrait of a Sicilian peasant, a dash- English) father. “He was very, very strict,” tional a way as possible. A relationship is had ideas, styles and visions as completely ing study in which even a heavily mousta- she says quietly. “We were terrified of him. sentbyGod andaccident.”Now hermater- differentastheirbackgroundsandtemper- chioed working man is made to look noble, He wasn’t abusive, he is a very honourable nal instincts are played out on her much- amentswerewidelydiverse. demonstrates the inimitable flattery of his man, intellectually curious. Knowledge, loved 9-nine-year-old nephew, Jim. “The Of course, such diversity can be illumi- touch.Butitalsoprovidesanamusingcom- history and rugby were the three big kind of actress I wanted to be meant play- nating.Takethefirsttwoartists:theperipa- parisonwithaportraitofSickertin whicha themes in our house. But he was unbend- ing huge theatrical parts requiring huge tetic American John Singer Sargent friend, sketching the painter’sfearsome fa- ing. His big complaint was that I was either amounts of travel and emotional energy. I (1856-1925) and the German-born cialhair,captureshisrebelliouscharacter. ‘I have enormous sadness in me’ out or sick. My mother was a party girl, so couldn’thavedonethatwithortoa child.” Londoner Walter Sickert (1860-1942). The Meanwhile, the Mornington Crescent Warner, for whom she also played Electra, Eliot and I came to like it, and him, more theywereverydifferent people.His expec- She won’t discuss her sexuality in depth careersofthesetwogreatEdwardianrivals Nude is hung close to Spencer’s famous Outwardly cheerful, Hedda Gabler, Richard II and Medea. She and more. A very gentle person comes tations of me were impossible. You were — partly with her mother in mind, partly are often held up for comparison precisely Self-Portrait with Patricia Preece, in which inwardly conflicted, is rehearsing her one-woman rendition of across, which his letters bear out. You can meant to study in very cold rooms and not “a residue from being Catholic” — and, al- becauseof theiropposingattitudes. the artist paints himself, gauche and be- T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, which she first feel his desperation when he wrote [recu- go out. This was the Seventies and we were though she claims newspapers have print- Sargent, if he had not already existed, spectacled with a shaggy haircut, in front Fiona Shaw’s life performed 13 years ago and which she will perating from a nervous breakdown in desperate to get out dancing to Abba. So I There’s no ed mistruths about her love life before, she wouldhavehadtobeinventedbyhisfriend of the naked Preece, who stares into space, do at Wilton’s Music Hall in East London, 1921] ‘On Margate Sands./I can connect/ wentoutandgotonwithit.” time to rest. doesn’t feel moved to correct them. “What HenryJames. He was a suave flatterer who eyes glazed over, expression resigned and goes into her acting, also directed by Warner. After that there’s Nothing with nothing./The broken finger- Shaw’sparents were dead set against her ‘‘ I appear to be is who I am. People buy a madehisreputationasasocietyportraitist. cold. How similarher moodof detachment Tim Teeman abigplay,London Assurance, at the nails of dirty hands./My people humble becoming an actor, but her father agreed Icanhear ticket, watch me on stage, then I go home His imposing full-length pictures, of dash- istothatof Sickert’spost-coital prostitutes. finds National opposite Simon Russell Beale, people who expect/Nothing.’ I always felt thatifshestudiedatuniversityfirst(shedid and close the door. They don’t need to ing men flaunting riding crops as if about This is the sort of over-the-shoulder then Shaw will direct her second opera for it was the heart of the poem and the letters philosophyatCork)hewouldpayforwhat- the bell knowanythingelse.Ifyoucomewithapro- to thrash the servants while their languid glance that is rife in a show that feels a bit iona Shaw is sorry she’s English National Opera after Riders to the showthattoo.Thebigdifferenceisimagin- ever she chose to do next — which meant jected image of someone you cannot see wives draped themselves on sofas, graced like a slightly overcrowded cocktail party late: she’s been waiting Sealastyear.Oh,andtherearethelastHar- ing the crowd on London Bridge. Now, Rada.“Forthefirsttimeinmylife,Iworked tolling, but it’s what,orwho,they areplaying.” everygranddrawing-roomoftheera. hosted by three people who don’t count for a builder to fix the ry Potters to film. It’s a breathless schedule post 9/11, a crowd means something else, veryhard andwentforit,”she says. not for me Thiswedisagree on: Isaythatwhen Isee Sickert,bycontrast,wasapricklycharac- each other as particular friends. On the roof at herhomein Prim- and she barely draws breath relating it, or buildings have changed, Eliot’s image of By her mid-20s she was feeling fulfilled Ian McKellen on film or stage, I don’t think terwhoimmersedhimselfinthecrudereal- whole the room is divided into discrete rose Hill, North London. muchelse,duringourlunch.Thoughtsand postwarLondon haschanged.” (attheRSC)andthefamily,generally,“was of what he does in bed, I think of who he is ities of common life. Flying in the face of groups. But a handful of crossover Her mother’s also got wordsflit,germinate,scatter. She shivers. “The other big thing to have at its zenith, everyone doing brilliantly.” playing: Shaw is being reductive in her Edwardian decorum his sad, dark nudes acquaintanceships bridge the divide. Here plumbing problems at “When I first did The Waste Land we changed is me. ‘Your shadow at morning Then Shaw’s brother Peter, 18, died in a car viewof anaudience’ssophistication. speak of bleak encounters in gloomy back are Sargent and Spencer sharing reminis- Shaw family HQ in Cork. thought about me lying down in a stair- striding behind you/Or your shadow at the crash. “Hewasgoingtoa rugbymatchwith Shaw likes to go home after the theatre rooms with whores who observe our cences of war, for example, or Sickert and “It’s already the dampest well, the audience looking down. But we fi- evening rising to meet you./I will show you friends. My mother remembers giving him “tiredandspent”andhopes,whenmortali- human foibles as coldly as the painter Sargent painting Venetian scenes. And house in Southern Ire- nally did it in an old disco in Brussels, with fear in a handful of dust.’ That ‘shadow of the keys and thinking, ‘Things are going so tydoesfinallycomeknocking,she is“satis- appearstodohimself. there is a portrait of William Rothenstein, land,” Shaw says, laughing. “She said it was light bulbs that cast big shadows. We also morning striding behind you’ was behind well for us’. So odd she thought that at that ’’ fyingly exhausted in the way George Ber- Sickert and Sargent can be presented as whowasto befriends withall three.

Fsocold she couldn’tholda bookin bed.” performed it in an old munitions factory in DONALD COOPER me when I first performed this, at 35. Now moment.But thenIknow,reallyknow,that nardShawsaidweshouldfeelonourdeath- two sides of a coin. But how exactly does You can work the room, try to knit a Shawisspeakingatanaccelerated,excit- Dublin. We performed it at Wilton’s too: ‘the shadow at evening’ is much bigger.” I am going to die in February.” Really? beds”.She sometimesgets down. “I’m not a Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) fit in? He story together, feel a bit frustrated when it ablegabble.Soundsdicey,hermotheris83, Deborah likes finding unusual spaces. But Meaningshehasasenseofherownmortal- What day? “On a Thursday.” My eyebrows depressive by nature. But I have enormous comes from another generation and this doesn’t seem to quite fit. Or you can take after all. “Oh, she doesn’t embrace suffer- you can’t have more than 200 people or it ity? “Absolutely. Ever since I turned 50 last go skyward. “When Peter died, it stopped sadnessinme.Ican seeitinmyface.” exhibition certainly does not make any theopportunityto further a few old friend- ing,” says Shaw. “She’s just bought a sports becomes a different kind of theatrical year.” That sounds scary. “Oh, I’m just en- me. I was just having my debut at the RSC, To really unwind she loves climbing, strongargumentforincludinghim. ships; discover something more about car. Horrible green thing. But she’s always event. The coughing starts up. It takes me joying everything much more,” she says, playing Celia in As You Like It. It was devas- would love to do Kilimanjaro. Will I come? Butthen,perhapsthat’snotitspoint.Per- Sargent as a fluid landscape water- ‘going’, as my granny used to say. Always 38minutes,beginningtoend.WhenI’mdo- back in hearty mode. “Living, taking tating. I go back on Christmas Day every Why not? “There’s no time to rest, Tim,” haps this new series of Fitzwilliam colourist, renew your appreciation of Sick- on herwaysomewhere. Neverstill. When I ing it, it feels like a movie running in my pleasure in things. I’m loving work more year to his grave and every year I have the she says, laughing. “We can rest for 12,000 Museum exhibitions should have been ert’s wonderful music-hall canvases. And, was growing up, if she wasn’t at home she head and I’m watching it.” She imagines than I have for years. I enjoy making same conversation with my older brother; years. I can hear the bell tolling, but it’s not titled “glancing angles” rather than as in all good social gatherings, you might wasat aparty.” scenescinematically: whenshe talks about films, but my heart is in the stage. we both worry that the heather planted on forme.”Andthen,likehermother,she’soff. “hidden depths” for, with such relatively makesomenew acquaintances. Like mother, like daughter ...Shawalso a dressing table, it’s her mother’s that she Every night you have to be on. his grave won’t grow. He’s buried next to limited material to draw on, curators can- takes life at a gallop. The acclaimed actress seesin hermind. There’snosecond take.” my granny and my grandfather and my TheWasteLandis atWilton’sMusic not hope to expound upon any subject Sargent,Sickert,Spenceris atthe is just finishing her stint as Mother Cour- Shaw says she remembers most of the Last year’s Shaw’s father had a stroke. great-uncle.The deadarepart ofyourlife.” Hall, London E1 (www.wiltons.org.uk, profoundly. The most they can do is cast a Fitzwilliam Museum,Cambridge(01223 age at the National Theatre, directed by poem. “Slowly, doing it a lot, made me be- “He’s in a home. The day before he had a Until her brother’s death, Shaw had 020-77022789/020-74523000) flashlight across a surface, highlighting 332900;www.fitzwilliam.cam.ac.uk), her old mate and collaborator Deborah lieve theheart of thepoem was theheart of stroke he was up a ladder and I don’t think played comedy roles — “preposterous Dec30toJan10 facets, glimpsing new fascinations, finding toApril 5