Felicity Kendal: ‘Things always go wrong in a theatre’

After the pandemic, Felicity Kendal was determined to do something upbeat as she fears we’ve all spent too much time “navel-gazing”.

And she’s struck lucky with a part in what’s reckoned to be one of the funniest plays ever made, Noises Off, by Michael Frayn.

It’s 40 years since the premiere of Noises Off, but it is still leaving audiences rolling in the aisles and now it is coming to the Cambridge Arts Theatre this month.

The former star of The Good Life, who calls herself “an upbeat person” reckons what audiences want now is a good laugh.

She says: “What I knew I did not want to do this year or last year was do a serious play that was in any way upsetting, or too inquiring. I think we’ve navel-gazed for two years and got sort of self-obsessed with life and death and disaster. And, personally, I think this play is what I want to be doing and I think it’s what a lot of people want to see - not particularly this play but something that makes people laugh.”

Having endured Covid herself and been worried for her partner Michael, who was hospitalised for a fortnight with the illness, she says “It’s been so bloody grim” and points to current headlines being gloomy. “To be honest, the news doesn’t help,” she says.

“We’ve got a culture now where good news is of no interest to anybody. Hope and positive thinking seems to become a kind of almost no, no. You’ve got to complain about something otherwise you’re not valid.”

Noises Off is Michael Frayn’s celebrated comedy of catastrophes which features a play within a play. It follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company as they stumble their way through the fictional farce, Nothing On.

It runs from the shambolic final rehearsals before opening night in Weston-super-Mare to a disastrous matinee in Ashton-under-Lyme - seen entirely and hilariously silently from backstage - before we share their final, terrible performance in Stockton-on-Tees.

In the show, Felicity is ageing stage star Dotty Otley, who is playing a housekeeper called Mrs Clackett in the touring play.

Felicity says: “It has a very clever structure and was created by a very, very good writer. And it’s not dated because it is about things that go wrong when people are trying to do a job and everything is catastrophe. And people laugh when other people are in a farcical situation, trying to get things right and they don't manage it.

“But it’s also incredibly well written and that’s what it’s known for. It just works. If there was a very simple answer to why it works, I think there would be about 50 plays like this running at the moment.

“I think there are always disasters in any job, from factories, to offices, to banks, to whatever you’re running. There are always moments when everything suddenly becomes farcical. So I think why this is such a long, enduring play is because it’s about things that go wrong for people, rather than particularly theatrical mishaps. It just happens to be about a touring company. But it could as well be some people who put tents up and they all fall down.”

She added that mishaps that make actors laugh backstage would probably not seem all that funny to anyone else.

“Things always go wrong in a theatre. And it can be the most boring thing to recount something that went wrong for the actors who find it hysterical. People just don’t get it. But I think that’s the magic of this play. It translates the desperation of trying to seem in charge when you’re not.”

Felicity shot to fame in the 70s sitcom The Good Life, but most recently she has been seen on stage as Evangeline Harcourt in Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre.

Felicity’s previous stage credits also include Lettice and Lovage, Hay Fever, Relatively Speaking, Mrs Warren’s Profession, among many others.

At 75 years old, she credits her long career to working on stage in recent years more than TV and film.

She says: “I think I’ve just been lucky. For one thing. I think I’ve stayed in the theatre which is not reliant on exactly what you look like. In the theatre, it’s more important how you are on stage in front of a live audience.

“The thing is that there are enough parts in every age group for people to work. You just have to get the parts. It isn’t that the parts dry out. But you know, there are more juvenile parts than there are mothers. And there are more mothers than grandmothers. So that is basically what it is. But then I have no idea why I have lasted, apart from the fact that the theatre is more enduring to an actor than then the screen because you’re not judged on what you look like all the time.

“I’ve done a lot of new plays and plays written by really wonderful writers. And I’ve just been lucky enough to generally be employed by good directors and, and have done plays that are very good, which has helped.

“It’s very difficult because the bottom line is theatre is not fair. There are many, many wonderful young actors who do not get jobs. But the point is, when you get the chance, you’ve just got to be streetwise enough to know when to take it and when not to take it.”

Felicity was keen to get back on stage after lockdown restrictions were lifted and this will be her second play since then, after starring in Anything Goes.

She says: “I grew up in the theatre and it’s home to me. And I know exactly as I get older that the power which you have on the stage of controlling that evening. And by that I mean it’s your responsibility. You can’t always control it. Sometimes you’re rotten that evening. Sometimes you are tired, but it is up to you as opposed to an editing room or somebody doing filming, where you can have a take and you’re not in control because it is over and done.

“I like the ‘now’ moment of going on stage. Last night we did the play and we are going to do it again tonight with a different audience. It will be different, but I will be there to know about it. So I like that more and more and the other thing I really like is being in a company of actors, because we’re all absolutely on a level trying to do the same thing with the same audience. So whether you’re playing a larger part or smaller part, you are all pulling the same cart. I like the democracy of it.”

The star also believes that the lockdowns showed how important it was for people to come together for a live performance and enjoy that experience.

She says: “I did Anything Goes just as the lockdown stopped and theatres were opening. And it really was the most wonderful experience because you could just feel the joy of people going back and being together, having been isolated. Because we’re pack animals and I think the experience of being in the theatre, quietly or laughing, collectively watching something and listening to a story… I think there’s a fundamental need that human beings have to group together. And it’s not the same in a cinema, because then you’re very isolated in your bubble. But with live theatre or music, poetry or dance, you are all in that moment. And I think there’s nothing like it, apart from religion and going to church or mosque or synagogue. So I think it’s a really important part of society. It’s not life-saving - not in a brain surgeon sort of saving lives way. But, you know, these things are important to how you live and now you feel.”

Noises Off is at the Cambridge Arts Theatre from Tuesday, October 25 to Saturday, October 29. Tickets from £25 are available at cambridgeartstheatre.com.