A4 Circle Magazine 67

Fancy coming to a tasting event? for the Friends of Norwich Theatre Royal 67 $WRXU1RUZLFK6WRUHZHKDYHDORYHO\ELJ VSDFHZKHUHZHKROGWDVWLQJHYHQWV OUROUR COUNTRYCOUNTRY :HDOVRKRVWSULYDWHWDVWLQJSDUWLHVLGHDOIRU COMESCOMES OFOF AGEAGE ELUWKGD\VKHQRUVWDJGR·VRUMXVWDV Royal Shakespeare Company with Henry IV VRPHWKLQJIXQWRGRZLWKIULHQGV :KHWKHU\RX·GOLNHWRWDVWHZLQHEHHURU VSLULWVZHZLOOZRUNZLWK\RXWRWDLORU\RXU LGHDOHYHQW LIPMAN’SLIPMAN’S SERVICESERVICE Maureen talks character BARNUM’SBARNUM’S THETHE NAMENAME 7RÀQGRXWDERXWRXUHYHQWVRUWRGLVFXVVDUUDQJLQJ Brian Conley on the ultimate showman \RXURZQWDVWLQJHYHQWMXVWJLYHXVDFDOORQ 01603 613243 IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 7KH$GQDPV6WRUH 7DVWLQJ5RRP Henry IV 8QWKDQN5RDG1RUZLFK153( Introduction Peter Wilson MBE DL Chief Executive In the last year two major theatre regularly. That’s why we’ve adjusted conferences have heard influential the discounts. theatrical producers describe Photo: Garlinda Birkbeck Photo: Norwich Theatre Royal as one of the There is a price, of course, and you’ll finest in the country. also read in the magazine (p. 15) that we intend, after many years, to raise Bill Kenwright put us among the top the Friends subscription by a few three. Eleanor Lloyd put us in the top pounds. It will still represent terrific two. value for money, and given the increase in the value of the Friends They cite the tremendous support discount you’ll be able to recoup the they get from our first-class technical extra cost by buying no more than crew, the knowledgeable and four more tickets each year. forensic skills of our marketing department, the reach and quality of You, with your contribution to the our educational team, the smoothly Theatre Royal, are as crucial a part of efficient service they get from our our success as are the producers box office, the fact that we offer top- who bring us such astounding quality and affordable catering to productions. We hope to carry on their actors, stage management and pleasing you both. musicians, and the general atmosphere of mutual trust and Please let me know if you think respect throughout the Theatre there’s anything we could do better, Royal. or more of, or initiate. We’re always open for business. But most of all they love our audiences. Peter Wilson MBE DL Chief Executive They love the fact that you come in such numbers, with such enthusiasm for live theatre, with such an appetite for the red meat that great performances provide, and with so personal a connection between the auditorium and the stage. ON SALE NOW Mon 15 - Sat 20 Sept They have DAYTONA qualms about the number of our Friends, Tuesday 4 November and the fact that we offer JETHRO no-quibbles discounts – shortly to be increased, as Monday 12 January you’ll read elsewhere – and of the Flies Lord BEYOND THE half-price first nights to dramas, BARRICADE all of which reduce the box office. Sunday 22 February But we tell them that without MILTON JONES AND those offers our audiences THE TEMPLE OF DAFT wouldn’t trust us to have their best interests at heart. Sunday 22 March OMID DJALILI We’ve operated on the same principle for over twenty years: Tuesday 21 April we want you to return to the Theatre Royal often and STEWART FRANCIS Circle Magazine July 2014 3 LIPMAN’S SERVICE Reclining on a battered brown leather they have, then love and sex are very, sofa in the cafe window of the very attractive. You want to prove otherwise shiny new Park Theatre in you’re alive.” It’s no plot spoiler to say, Harry Shearer Oliver Cotton north London, Maureen Lipman of course, that Lipman is talking about The only thing to do, she says, is keep on manages poise and ease in equal the Holocaust. talking. Just not on social media. “I don’t think measure. That, despite being mid-run “All these survivors (and I’ve met so, love! I can get a bit obsessive, which is in arguably her most demanding many) are made of steel, because why my kids won’t let me go on Twitter. They stage role yet, in a career that spans they’re the ones who survived. But said: ‘If you start with your opinions, you’re some five decades. along with the survival comes” – she going to get killed. People are going to start pauses – “guilt. ‘Why me?’ pushing stuff through your letterbox like they “I’m possessed,” she says, her brown Sometimes, if I’m at one of these did to Miriam Karlin.’ Besides – when do you eyes flashing. “It just takes me over. I Holocaust events, I look at these do it, when do you Twitter? When you’re with wake up every two hours thinking, fantastic women and men, so cultured your partner? Just before you go to bed? I’m ‘Ooh, that’s good’ or ‘I should and beautiful, and they’ve got their bad enough with my phone! He’s always Maureen Lipman practice that’. But you can’t. Because gorgeous grandchildren around and I looking at me, saying, ‘On that phone again?’” then you get really overtired. And think, “Damn you, Hitler, you failed.” As Joe and Elli prepare to then you get ...” – the Lipman ‘He’ is Guido Castro, an Italian businessman continue sharing their love of eyebrows raise – “symptoms. From She chuckles unapologetically. ballroom dancing, an and Lipman’s “gentleman friend” (her words) the first read through I’ve been “They’re the proof that you can cull for the past five years, following the death of unexpected arrival threatens emotional to say the least.” but you can’t destroy.” to turn the couple’s lives her husband, playwright Jack Rosenthal, from multiple myeloma cancer in 2004. The couple upside down. Thus begins The source of this high emotion is As survivor Elli, Lipman has received Daytona, a new play fresh from share a roomy basement flat in Paddington, Daytona, a play by Lipman’s friend rave reviews. “Everyone who comes west London, where Lipman spends many the West End, which visits and fellow actor Oliver Cotton, which says: ‘God, but you’re so different. We Norwich Theatre Royal from hours pottering about in her courtyard opened at the Park Theatre last didn’t know it was you.’ But I knew garden. “I’ve got the worst social life of anyone 15 – 20 September as part of a summer, and is now currently her. Even before we started short tour and stars Maureen you’ve met,” she protests. “I’m so boring, it’s preparing for a short tour fresh from rehearsals, I knew her. She’s witty and not true!” Lipman. Ahead of her its West End run. A dramatic and witty dry and restrained, very restrained. appearance, she catches up tango à trois, it’s the story of Elli and There’s a lot going on inside but she with Nancy Groves. But anything to escape the angst of modern Joe, an elderly Jewish couple whose doesn’t want to look at it. The status life. “Guido has a theory about why ballroom dance practice is disturbed quo makes her happy. As Joe says, everyone’s so angry: we’ve stopped smoking. one evening by the arrival of an ‘Elli and I have a made a life for When you smoked,” – she holds an imaginary unexpected but all-too-familiar face ourselves. We don’t want to look at cigarette to her mouth – “you had a moment at the door of their Brooklyn the past.’ I think a lot of people feel to think. When you’re in the car now, the apartment. that way.” anger! The fingers flying. And you can’t help thinking: I don’t want a war, but Martians Each corner of this troubled triangle Being a Jew in England has its pluses would be very good for us. Send in a green hides a secret, making Cotton’s plot and minuses, says Lipman. “I once person with an antenna!” hard to write about without betraying counted up the number of chicken his carefully drawn characters. Suffice soup bowls I’ve brought in on various Or failing a green person, a grandchild. to say: “It’s a play about the validity of sets – I got into double figures!” But Lipman dotes on her own, young Ava Sabrine, revenge and of compromise. Two then there’s the anti-Semitism, the even though, as she says, “everyone’s called people who compromised love for extremist websites, those who deny Ava now”. The baby eats olives and kippers some stability in their lives after the Holocaust. “You have to tell the and squeezes lemons into her mouth, Lipman everything that happened to them story in every generation,” she urges. reports with delight. “Sometimes I even see during the war. And into their lives “They’ve just dug up Richard the Jack in her which is really, really something. I comes a figure from the past who’s Third. Did he have a humpback? No, knew I’d enjoy it: I liked being a parent, I’m about to shatter that – who’s done he had scoliosis. Did he kill those going to love being a grandparent.” And a something monumental.” people? History and Shakespeare cultured, beautiful one to boot. said he did, so he did.” Lipman continues: “It’s love, sex, death – always. And when you’ve been in close proximity to death, as Maureen Lipman in Daytona-photo Manuel Harlan 4 Circle Magazine July 2014 5 SHOW-STOPPING! HOLIDAY HOMES WITH STAR QUALITY Afternoon RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT delights? 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