The Daily Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 17

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MONDAY, JULY 25, 1994 17 Do the thing that scares you witless ARTS useless luvvies drives me mad. I can take a joke, but what irritates me about it is that it trivialises the work we do' one another shouting 'darling heart' at The fact that she is black has been endlessly pointed out to her. In 1988 her casting as Isabella in Measure for Measure caused an uproar one or two of the crustier critics were appalled that Isabella should be portrayed by a black person. Fortunately she was so good that she silenced all opposition, just as she did when she was the first-ever black actress to play Maggie, at the National, in Arthur Miller's After the Fall, a "blonde" role putatively based on Miller's wife Marilyn Monroe. A political edge has been a constant factor in Josette's screen work.

She spent time filming Mozambique in Maputo civil war during to the this thing about actors all being that what you should always do in life is the thing that scares you She chuckled and went on to praise the Leeds audience (this production of The Lady from the Sea hails from the West Yorkshire Playhouse) which she describes as very committed. I wondered if "committed" really meant anything, or was it a vague term used mostly by theatre luvvies? She laughed and admitted it was, then got a bit cross. this thing about actors all being useless luvvies drives me mad. I can take a joke as much as the next man, but what irritates me about it is that it trivialises the work we do. Actors have a craft, and they work bloody hard at it.

It's not all Straight to the heart and soul of faith SURELY only masochists Shaw may be verbose, but this play makes you think and feel ledge that at his would wish to submit themselves to three hours of Saint Joan in a theatre like a baker's oven? I must confess that I took my seat in a state of steaming resentment, with Shaw's own words from the play's preface ringing in my ears. "To a professional critic," he wrote, "theatregoing is the curse of Adam. The play is the evil he is paid to endure in the sweat of his brow; and sooner it is over, the better." I think Shaw, once a great drama critic himself, is far too cynical here, but there is something about many of his own excessively wordy, wearisomely paradoxical and horribly sexless plays that brings out the rebellious schoolboy in me. Does anyone really enjoy this vain old chatterbox? by the end of this long, sweat-drenched evening, realised that I actually had enjoyed it. Gale Edwards's assured production is fast Josette Simon: 'Actually A right part had not come up.

Josette Simon's only connection with the sea is via her roots in the Caribbean. parents were from Antiplea and Anguilla respectively, but she was brought up in Leicester. She ended up at drama school and landed big part in the sci-fi TV series Blake's 7. After that she joined the RSC. One particular director keeps asking her to go back, but "everytime he does I have an accident the last one was a car crash!" The most accident-prone actress in Britain confines herself to fairly heavy roles on stage.

What are the perks of a classical diet? "Well, it sounds but I want to be challenged. I like to be stretched. I have this saying Picture: ALASTAIR MUIR Touching: Imogen Stubbs as Joan, with Philip Quast HISTORY does not relate what the powers-that-be at the BBC made of Sue Lawley making a series of Sundaynight "specials" for ITV. If they experienced the wounded amour propre of a husband whose wife has run off with another man, they will have got over those feelings within five minutes. of Inside Track on Crime and decided they were well shot of the woman.

Though some misguided producers have tried hard to build Lawley into the thinking woman's Anneka Rice, she is a quintessential lightweight. This wretchedly bland programme had its mo- Actress Josette Simon is back on the London stage in a major Ibsen role. She talks to Robert Gore-Langton about her work and a tendency to accidents I The National, 1991, White while the Devil actress playing at the Jo- in sette Simon had a nasty accident. Each night, in the a part of Vitoria, she played a scene in which she was confronted by a character with two pistols; one empty, one "loaded" with an explosive blank. During one performance, the guns were mistakenly mixed up and to everyone's horror a fire-flash round was discharged pointblank into her face.

was very lucky," she says. "I somehow knew that the wrong gun was pointing at and instinctively I turned my face when the trigme. ger was pulled. It could have been worse. Having been carried of I also knew that I had to clamber back on.

I insisted on continuing, knowing that if I didn't finish the scene I would never do another." There is ocular proof of her injury. Some metallic debris is still embedded in her eye, giving me a perfect excuse to gaze deeply into her lovely twin pools of molasses. Her eyes are not the least notable feature of a woman whose athletic gracefulness she usually gets likened by male critics to a thoroughbred horse is suited to Ellida Wangel, the central figure in Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea, a role once famously inhabited by the equally leggy Vanessa Redgrave. This is her first stage play since the accident. Without stopping think, I asked her why she hadn't chosen a better Hedda Gabler Ibsen to make say her return.

No sooner were the words out of my big mouth than I remembered Hedda has to blow her brains out with a pistol in the last scene. Miss Simon, who I suspect does not suffer fools, made an exception of me and patiently explained that she was not permanently gunshy nor hopelessly traumatised. Her absence from the stage was due to film commitments, and until now the Dealing lightly with crime ments but most of the ideas could have been lifted from a dozen similar shows and were equally objectionable. Although I view crime reconstructions television with the deepest misgivings, I have never gone along with the idea that they heighten people's fear of crime. After last night's excesses, I am not so sure.

The sensations experienced by a woman who had been chased through a house were recreated in lurid detail by a cameraman running up and down stairs hold- BBC PROMS 94 15 July-10 September Royal Albert Hall Wednesday 27 July, 7.00pm Tchaikovsky Symphony No 1 in minor and music by Moeran and Liszt BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Martyn Brabbins conductor 8212 Seats 17 Prom places £2 and £3 (available on the night) HULTON RADIO DEUTSCH 3 COLLECTION Clarity and vision Picture: LAURIE SPARHAM bidden to black up. Chatting in this vein, I asked when she was going to play the greatest of Shakespeare's women Cleopatra. "Well, I was asked to do it when I was 19 just because I was black! But I see the part as being about mature passion, and I'm not ready for yet. For the time being I simply want to do good work and carry on playing characters who are With luck she will be back at the RSC before too long: she admits to an itch to play Viola in Twelfth Night. If and when it happens, fingers will be break crossed a leg that on the she opening doesn't night.

'The Lady from the Sea' is previewing at the Lyric Hammersmith. Tickets: 081-741 2311 was indeed a great writer. inward cheer when she There's a strong supportfinally finds the courage to ing cast, with especially stick to her guns. In this mar- work from Jasper Britton vellous scene Shaw seems to the craven Dauphin, get right to the heart of what Bones as the sinister, schemit means to believe. ing Earl of Warwick The epilogue, set 25 years Peter Jeffrey as the wily after Joan's death, is equally genuinely compassionate Peter J.

Davison's great Inquisitor, who almost marble set disappears ceeds in persuading you to reveal a twinkling night burning heretics is just sky, one of many ravishing another sign of God's mercy. visual coups. The characters, You expect Shaw to make living and dead, reconvene in you think. The real achievegleaming white costumes in a ment of this excellent scene that combines humane duction is that it also makes comedy with a sense of mys- you feel. tery, reconciliation and loss; Tickets: 071-930 8800 it's at moments like this that you are forced to acknow- CHARLES SPENCER PROMS 1994 THE retrospective mood of this year's centenary Proms has allowed the director, John to reflect on the personalities who have made a mark in previous seasons.

It comes as no surprise that, given Henry Wood's pioneering spirit, he introduced so many works to London via the Proms, and that subsequent programmeplanners have inherited much of his instinct for the scoop. Wood first included Bruckner's Symphony No 7 in one of his concerts (in 1903); William Glock in 1966 invited Bernard Haitink to make his Proms a year before he was appointed principal conductor of the LPO. Both these events, were marked by last Friday's concert, in which Haitink conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the same programme as the one with which he made his debut: the Bruckner, Beethoven's Coriolan Overture Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante 364. The clarity that underpins Haitink's conducting manifest itself with compelling interpretative vision in such monuments of the repertory, and so it was here. In the Mozart, for instance, the soloists sound of constant gunfire.

With her record it is amazing she wasn't hit. Her bestknown role was as Dr Ramphele in Richard Attenborough's film about Donald Woods and Steve Biko, Cry Freedom. Simon is proud of the film for all its faults, and while filming in Zimbabwe she turned down the offer from the authorities to visit South Africa as an "honorary "I was dying to go but under those terms I said no thanks." In Britain the intellectual battle for racially integrated casting has been won in theory; in practice little has changed in the last 10 years. She sadly one of the very few high- profile black actors in the country. She has been invited on to endless earnest THEATRE Saint Joan Strand Theatre fallen under the spell of his chaste heroine, and she is presented with unusual warmth and feeling.

In the early scenes Imogen Stubbs is just a touch too wholesome and naive with her cropped hair, Geordie accent and relentless enthusiasm, she puts one in mind of the captain of the Christian Union's North East Ladies Hockey Team. But it is hard to resist her good-humoured energy, and in the great Inquisition scene she is heartbreakingly good, a like figure suddenly forced doubt the faith that is her whole raison Her anguish, her confusion and her vulnerability are all superbly captured, and it is impossible to repress an psychologist, when asked about a hypothetical mugging situation. "It's not as important as your physical Fair enough, up to a point; but I can remember another programme, that I found far more psychologically convincing, which argued that the way to deal with a mugger was to roar like a lion, run towards him and attack him back. Most muggers panicked and took to their heels. If Inside Track was thin, Scavengers was anorexic.

I suppose you had to give ITV's big new Saturdaynight game-show high marks for technical merit; but when it came to artistic impression, it scored close to nil. The producers had forgotten two facts of television life that are so elementary that it is embarrassing to have to repeat them. The first is that a is about having fun. The ludicrously solemn music and John Leslie's equally ludicrous impersonation of a Scottish scoutmaster, bullying his charges, were so misjudged it was pitiful. The second is that the most important ingredient in a game-show is the humanbeings taking.

part. Here, because of the space helmets and the near-dark studio, it was hard to form any impression of the contestants and see what they were doing and why. That ITV had spent millions on this rubbish would normally have been a source of quiet amusement. During a weekend when thousands were dying in Rwanda and better ways of spending the money were screaming out from the television news, it was rather sobering. MAX DAVIDSON forums on the subject of colour and has been made flag-waver for every black actor in the business.

"It's not, I have to say, the reason why I am in the job. I am not pretending I'm not black, but I hate that term 'black actor'. You wouldn't go around describing someone as a 'white actor'. I also hate the term 'colour-blind casting' what on earth does that mean?" I wasn't sure, but this all led on to a debate about Othello. Can a white man play him these days? Trevor Nunn once said it was high time we put the kibosh on any more of Othellos.

Josette Simon agrees with him. I still think it would be a shame if old fruits like Donald Sinden were for- MUSIC BBC SO; Australian Youth Orchestra Albert Hall Thomas Zehetmair (violin) and Tabea Zimmermann (viola) were part of a precisely integrated conception of the piece, in which freshness of ideas was allied to unmistakably mature understanding. The confidence Haitink inspires was felt particularly in the Bruckner. His study of such an edifice as the Seventh has led to a reading that appreciates its massiveness but which also brings out its ecstatic and ethereal qualities. Without such foundations as Haitink can lay, the brickwork of the symphony can crumble; but in this magnificent performance even the mortar in between made architectural and aesthetic sense.

The Australian Youth Orchestra's concert under Kreizberg celebrated three other "firsts" which Wood originally brought to the Proms: Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, Sibelius's Violin Concerto and Ravel's Pavane pour une infante So here nostalgia and forward-thinking coalesced: familiar works played by a young orchestra of brilliance, colour and sensitivity, with a conductor who is becoming one of the hottest properties around. Proms box office: 071-589 8212 moving, impressively designed and splendidly acted; and the play itself is far better than I remembered from the school production appeared in aged 15 (not in the title role, I hasten to add, but as the pageboy who has to sneeze cue not at all easy, and congratulations to Dominic Curtis who plays this thankless part with Saint Joan is not without Shaw's usual faults, in particular speeches that go on for pages, characters only there to represent a particular point view, and his tiresome, school-masterly sense of humour. But in Saint Joan, he had an genuinely interesting story to tell, and for the most part he tells it straight and efficiently. More remarkably are moments that achieve real depth of emotion. appears to have attitudes and anxieties about crime, but none of them was particularly revealing.

"How worried are you?" Lawley demanded, with melodramatic emphasis, after a survey showing that half the population were worried about something other half wasn't: the subliminal message was that you ought to be worried. Nor was I happy with some of the "sound practical advice" which show dispensed. "'Let him take your money," advised a female Jewellery Marches Ahead at Bonhams. OUR JEWELLERY SALES are renowned for their consistently successful results. You, too, can take advantage of this sterling opportunity.

We are currently cataloguing for our Autumn jewellery sales and would be delighted to hear from you, whether you wish to buy or sell. Please telephone or write 1 to the Jewellery Department at Bonhams, Montpelier Street, London SW7 1HH. Direct Line: 071 393 3970 LONDON'S MOST ENTERPRISING AUCTION HOUSE BONHAMS GEOFFREY NORRIS TELEVISION Inside Track (ITV) Scavengers (ITV) ing a camcorder. The whole effect was absurdly over the top. creten by a coincidence, the were able to film the same woman's reactions, live as they happened, to her house being burgled, the genuine article seemed ersatz in comparison.

Various Gallup polls were used to illuminate people's Saturday 13th August at 7.30pm Music on a The THE Wren ENCHANTED Symphony LAKE Orchestra Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Khatchaturian, Borodin, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Liadov, Summer This Gliere, is the Russian Tchaikovsky. Night to end all Russian Nights. Evening, SPONSORED BY PERNOD 1994 MARBLE HILL Sunday 24th July at 7.30pm KENWOOD, AUDLEY END, THE LEGEND LIVES ON: MARBLE HILL THE GLENN MILLER ANNIVERSARY CONCERT The Glenn Miller Orchestra UK invite you to dance The Daily Telegraph under the stars to the music of Glenn Miller. Come in conjunction with English early for pre-concert jazz and swing from the Digby The Daily Telegraph Fairweather Sextet. Heritage are offering readers up to a discount off the full price at each of the Sunday 31st July at 7.30pm 28 concerts in the Music on a Summer Evening THE AMERICAN CONNECTION Series.

They are set in the beautiful grounds of The Bournemouth Symphony four of English Heritage's most prestigious Orchestra properties Kenwood, Hampstead; Marble Hill, Walton, Bliss, Rachmaninov and Twickenham; Audley End, Saffron Walden; Tchaikovsky. Wrest Park, Bedfordshire. Tonight's music is linked in some way or another to the United States. Conducted by the celebrated American conductor, Andrew Litton. Remember to bring a picnic so that you can sit back and enjoy the wonderful music with a glass of wine and perhaps a cucumber sandwich.

Do not forget if you book three separate concerts you will receive a voucher entitling you to a complimentary series souvenir programme. BOO KING KENWOOD Please telephone nIck Saturday 6th August at 7.30pm on 071-413 9033 or 071 344 4444 SONG IN THE NIGHT quoting the Daily Telegraph Special The Midland Symphony Orchestra Offer (open 24 hours a day) and Chabrier, Glinka, Rodrigo, Massenet, Hasselmans, Salzedo, Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel. have your credit card details ready. Marisa Robles performs the harp version of the For further information phone guitar concerto by Rodrigo. Danzas Espagnola return 071 973 3427 to add colour to this popular Spanish programme.

and ask for our free booklet that SPONSORED BY CITROEN gives full details on every concert. ENGLISH HERITAGE.