The much-loved actress is starring in Filumena at Theatre Royal Windsor, October 4th to 19th and Yvonne Arnaud Guildford, October 22nd to 26th
Bill Kenwright Ltd presents Eduardo De Filippo’s classic comedy Filumena, as the second play to be directed by Sean Mathias this season at the Theatre Royal Windsor.
Amidst the heat of a Neapolitan summer, Filumena (Felicity Kendal) lies on her deathbed, waiting to marry Domenico (Matthew Kelly), the man who has kept her as his mistress for 25 years.
But no sooner than they are married, she makes a miraculous recovery, much to the surprise of her new, unwilling husband and his younger lover.
However, Filumena holds on to a secret from her past life, revealing that one of her three grown-up sons is Domenico’s. But which one? Will he accept all three?
Q: How did this play actually come about? It was from Bill Kenwright, wasn’t it?
A: He wanted to find a play for me and he felt we must work together again. He was being the usual Bill Kenwright: absolutely, amazingly funny and relaxed and jokey. And, you know, the fact that he and Michael [Rudman, Felicity’s late partner] were not well at the same time was something to talk about. I had worked with him many, many times and we absolutely loved each other. I used to call him boss. Then Michael died and I was away and Bill rang and he was just so lovely and funny and reminiscing about things and he said, look you’ve got to do Filumena.
Q: What are your key memories and thoughts of Bill?
A: I particularly loved working with him. I loved his sense of humour. I loved his passion. He was incredibly passionate about the work he did and very, very good at it, extremely good at it. He was incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable of the theatre and music and the world… and, of course, his passion for football.
Q: What is Filumena about and what drew you to this character?
A: I read the play and I imagined saying the lines and I wanted to be in that play. That’s what draws me to something. I love the play. I love the way it evolves. And the character is strong. She has had everything thrown at her in her life. And she could be the ultimate victim; she is in fact a victim of circumstance and fate. But she is anything but victimised. And she just pushes ahead with determination. She has a wonderful sense of humour, and she is full of passion, passion for the man she loves, passion for her children, passion for her family, passion to live against all odds from a very difficult start in life and quite a difficult life. Overcoming difficulties and making them into something successful is something I admire in people and that is this character. For me, with acting, you’re creating something that is actually not real. It’s not you, but you have to understand the facet of that complicated character that you’re asked to draw.
The play is hugely religious, in that my character’s strength comes from her religion – she’s Catholic – and her strength comes from a belief in what is right. It’s also a play about deception, why it’s necessary, if it’s necessary. It’s a play about jealousy, about children, about class and caste and a woman’s place and it’s also a play about surviving love and how incredibly intolerable poverty can be, and how that can impact on a woman’s choices in those days. So it’s touching an awful lot of things that people talk about. The character I play is an older woman, but her life, the life of the man she loves when they were younger, was quite extraordinary and that’s what you learn about.
The play is not very well known, so nobody has seen it played hundreds of times. So you hear it in your head as your own rhythm and tune. I’ve found working on this progressively more difficult, because I think it’s the first time for years that I haven’t had Michael giving me a kind of, well, how many more hours are you going to do that? And I have a way of working that has always been very much part of our life together and that really has brought home that he’s not here. He would always give me his opinion about a play and whether I should do it or not; I haven’t had it on this. So I had no idea whether he would say, don’t touch it, you will be absolutely boring, in which case I wouldn’t have. So that opinion isn’t there to draw on. So there’s no strength from that. I mean, in the past he has sometimes said, you must do this because you’d be wonderful. And he was, you know, usually pretty good and sometimes he would say that’s not for you and if I went ahead he was proved right. I tend to spend a long time at the kitchen table writing it out and rewriting and rewriting and that’s how I learn. And you know every now and again, well there would be words of encouragement or, have you got to act three? So I don’t have anybody to comment, but, you know, that’s not to say I’m not loving it. I do enjoy the process and I do think the more I read the script, the more I am just so happy to be doing this job. I just love this play.
Q: I was going to ask are you looking forward to getting back on tour?
A: Going on tour is very much part of my history as an actor. I mean, I started my career going on tour. And I think as things have gone on in the last three, four, five, ten years, it’s more and more important that actors go on tour, because the West End is appallingly expensive. People don’t actually come up from the regions in the way they used to, so we have to go to them and going out on tour is important.
Q: What is it about Windsor that you always associate with or look forward to?
A: One of the successful plays I did there was Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, directed by Michael [Rudman] and produced by Bill Kenwright, so you can imagine it’s a very special place for me. It holds memories forever.
Q: Is there anything you always like to do when you’re in Windsor?
A: I usually walk along the river with the dog. I think I may not have the dog with me, though, in the first few weeks of this play, because I have realised this is a huge part. I usually look at a play and think, oh I’m dead by the middle of the second act, and I think, that’s lovely! I didn’t quite realise how long a role it was until I started studying it. So I think I won’t be seeing much of Windsor this time, I’m afraid.
Q: Do you know much about the original playwright, Eduardo de Filippo?
A: I don’t know much about him. The play is set in Naples. I saw the original production of this translation [by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall]. Years and years ago, Zeffirelli directed it, in 1977. That was in London with Joan Plowright. Judi Dench did the second production [here in 1998]. They were memorable. Absolutely memorable. But I don’t see that their performances are in any way going to be the one I do. There’s more than one way to play the character. It’s that beautifully written.
Q: One of the key people in the production is obviously the director, Sean Mathias.
A: I’ve seen a lot of his work, which I think is just lovely. I’ve met him many times. He’s a gorgeously relaxing person to be with, but with a very firm and incredibly highly skilled and intelligent way of looking at plays. And so he absolutely was somebody that I’ve always wanted to work with. He creates this band of merry men, which is very important when you’re putting on a play. I think he will be, well, I hope, a friend for life, because he clearly is a very special person. He has something, which to me is a very important part of being a director, he has a very firm idea of how he will steer the ship right and it is not that it is his vision, but it is his collecting of all the various things that are going on. I like directors like that and I know I will love working with him.
Q: What is it all these years on that keeps you wanting to get back on stage?
A: I think one of the things I realised is that I actually like to work. That’s what I am. I’m a working Cocker Spaniel. I’m not, you know, a show dog and I’m not a lap dog. I’m working and that’s what I love and I feel it’s just what I’m supposed to be doing. And I just feel better about it when I’m doing it. I love being in the company of clever people doing a job that I understand.
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