Angela Lansbury: Farewell to a Blithe Spirit

  

What a woman, what a talent, what an inspiration, what a life. I count myself incredibly fortunate to have seen Angela Lansbury live on stage on three occasions, starting with the Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim musical Gypsy at the Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End on 16 October, 1973. I remember the exact date because after the evening’s performance, an announcement was made that it was her birthday and the audience, who she already had eating out of the palm of her hand, serenaded her with a rousing Happy Birthday. If memory serves me correctly, she went on to win an Evening Standard Award for her powerful, nuanced performance as Mama Rose. The production subsequently transferred to Broadway, where she received a Tony (along with a swag of other awards).

In 2013 Shane Jones and I saw Angela Lansbury perform opposite the equally superb James Earl Jones in a revival of Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize winning Driving Miss Daisy at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne in what amounted to an acting masterclass. I have a DVD recording of the play, and her performance moves me to tears every time. 

Back in London in 2014, we saw her delightful, scene stealing turn as the daffy medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s sublime supernatural comedy, Blithe Spirit, at the Gielgud Theatre. She had previously been awarded a Tony for the same role on Broadway. In London she garnered more rave reviews and went on to win her first Olivier Award at the grand age of 89. Both productions were directed by another theatre great, Australian born Michael Blakemore. 

The top photo was taken on the day Shane and I purchased our front row centre seats for Blithe Spirit. The title of Coward’s play is also an apt description of the incandescent Angela Lansbury, who will live on through the astonishingly diverse body of work in theatre, television and film that she leaves behind.

Pictured above: an autographed photo of Angela Lansbury, a surprise gift from Shane several years ago, occupies pride of place in our cinema room.

To view the short biographical film Remembering Angela Lansbury, published by the New York Times, go HERE. 

The Melbourne International Film Festival, Miss Daisy, Madame Arcati and Dame Angela

Currently I’m spending more time in Melbourne than in Ballarat (generally it's the other way around). We’re in town for the 2014 Melbourne International Film Festival, an event Shane and I eagerly anticipate each year. Our first film screened on the first day of MIFF: Life Itself, an affectionate, moving documentary about the late American film critic Roger Ebert.

Fine as Life Itself was, the movie we saw on Sunday, August 3, will be hard to beat. It screened at the Kino cinema, one of the MIFF venues, although Driving Miss Daisy, a three-hander brilliantly performed by Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines, wasn’t part of the festival. It was filmed in 2013 at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre during the sold-out season of the play, which regular visitors to this blog may remember I singled out as one of last year’s personal highlights. It’s marvelous that it’s been so sensitively captured on film; having the chance to experience it all over again was an utter joy.

Outside the Geilgud Theatre, London on the day we booked our tickets for Blithe Spirit.
Photograph by Barbara Britton

I mentioned above that the film will be hard to top, but in fact immediately afterwards it was at least equaled by a riveting, in-depth interview with Angela Lansbury conducted recently at London’s British Film Institute directly after the screening there of Driving Miss Daisy. (Miss Lansbury was in London appearing as Madame Arcati in a scintillating new production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, which we saw back in April, and for which she received some of the best notices of her career). The interview is a must for lovers of theatre, film and, of course, the incomparable Miss Lansbury. Having said that, counting Shane and I, there were only eight people in the audience. Perhaps it was a mistake to screen it at the same time as MIFF. The Kino also ran Driving Miss Daisy on Saturday, August 2. I hope that at least on that day it got the audience it deserved.