Saturday 31 July 2010

What an actor's dressing table looks like

I’ve had lovely emails and comments over the past few weeks – thank you to all of you who have taken the time to write. It is both humbling and thrilling to know that I have readers from West Hampstead to the West Coast.

The fantastic Edward Petherbridge left the following comment under my most recent blog post and I really felt I must dedicate a post to it. I admire anything of a literary persuasion, and what I feel is surely the lifelong literary student in me takes great joy in beautiful words.

So here is Edward’s comment, inspired I believe by our series of photographs of the view from the room with the view.

‘Your sky-scapes perhaps gain from having no quaint or noble towers - only chimney pots and an aerial is it? Nature puts on her magical displays despite our banalities. A blossom tree round a couple of corners from us this spring would have graced a palace - once more made me marvel that it was prepared to display its white magnificence adjacent to the crude red brick and plastic framed windows of a block of flats.

Today, walking into The British Museum, I passed a man whose job was scraping the chewing gum off the stone steps under the magnificent portico - was he set to work there to remind us of our crudity in the face of thousands of years of high culture?

I feel like seeing the films you tell us about - even failing a Retro Tastic Cinema.

All the best, Edward.’


Here's Edward (and his daughter, the much featured Dora) in his dressing room at the Duchess Theatre, London, when he was appearing in The Fantasticks.

And just in case you ever wondered what actually graces an actor's dressing table ...


Edward Petherbridge's dressing table image by Dora Petherbridge

2 comments:

  1. I thought Edward's comment was lovely. I have seen him in various plays over the years and he's wonderful. One of my ex boyfriends knows him and they were in many productions together at the RSC. It was when I was going through my much older man phase... We're still great friends now xx

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  2. Well its a small world! I was worried all the Edward Petherbridge coverage on here might be a getting too much - but he sends me such wonderful emails and I think as fellow bloggers we inspire a bit of creativity in each other. I know him because he's my best friend's dad and he's very funny in real life too. Thank you for taking the time to read all this and to comment - I was overwhelmed when I discovered them all! xx

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