In May 1970, I acted with Paul Eddington in Paul Ableman’s Hank’s Night, one half of a double bill at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. It was directed by Californian wild man Charles Marowitz.
I was a totally untried ingénue – at 19, scarcely out of regulation convent- school bloomers.
Paul, 43, had a fine pedigree among the acting fraternity but was scarcely known by the public. In 1956, he had had his first major TV role in Dixon of Dock Green. And he was Will Scarlet in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Quietly however, Paul was extremely ambitious – and he loathed Charles Marowitz.
Hank’s Night is set in suburbia. There is a tedious dinner party, where my bored character decides that they should all throw off their clothes and have an orgy. Nakedness had become popular in certain circles in the early ’70s.
Marowitz suggested I should fling off my bra at the end, then jump up and down ecstatically on a pouffe – regardless of the audience, only inches away. During rehearsals, Paul whispered that if I went ahead with this, he would walk. So my bra stayed on and the curtain was brought rapidly down.
After Guildford, there was some slack in Paul’s career. In 1973, he was determined to get a part in Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular, starring Richard Briers, at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus.
He secured the part. And it was out of these connections that, 50 years ago, in 1975, The Good Life was born. An actor’s life is a game of chance, and this was Paul’s moment. It led on to his triumphs in Yes Minister (1980-84) and
Yes, Prime Minister (1986-88). He died of cancer in 1995, aged only 68. I recently learnt, while on a visit to the tiny Quaker church in Sudbury, Suffolk, that the dying man used to pray alone on a Sunday. He would enter and leave in silence.
Paul will never be forgotten. Immortalised on our screens, he will outlive us all.
Madeline Smith
