Interview

Lynda Bellingham & Alison Steadman

Lynda Bellingham and Alison Steadman are co-starring in Losing Louis, a comedy which was a hit at Hampstead and is currently playing at the Trafalgar Studios (which used to be known as the Whitehall Theatre). Paul Webb, who enjoyed the play when he reviewed it there recently, went onstage to meet them.

The seats are pretty close to the stage, aren't they? AS "Yes - a bit too close! It can be quiet distracting when people are sitting almost onstage with you. Of course you're concentrating on the play, but you can't help but notice them - the other day a guy brought in bags full of shopping and sat with them between his wide-spread legs, as if he was in his own front room. You take note then have to concentrate twice as hard as usual on what you're doing..."

You both do what you do very well - it's a very funny play and I laughed out loud more than at any other play (apart from The Anniversary) that I've been to for a long time. LB"It is a very well-written comedy, and we enjoy being in it. In some ways it's harder to play than at Hampstead, because the seating here at the Trafalgar is so steeply raked."

AS "Yes, you have a bit of a problem in terms of who you aim at in the audience - if you go for the back row people see under your chin, while if you play to the front part then the audience at the back can only see the top of your head!"

I was sitting towards the front and at the side on press night, and I felt so involved in what was going on - and not just because I was literally a few feet away - that I almost wanted to join in! AS "I'm glad you didn't!"

We're all agreed it's a good play and very funny, but it's also charmingly old-fashioned, don't you think? AS "It may be charming - and it certainly has a lot of depth too, it's not just a superficial comedy, there's a deeper side to it, but I wouldn't call it old fashioned at all."

LB "It's set in the present day and the 1950s but it's more Ayckbournish than what I would called old-fashioned..."

I meant in the sense that it's on one set, and that looks a bit like something out of Terry and June - that's not a criticism! AS "No, but I think 'period' would be a better word. It's about a family, and we see them in the present day, about to bury the father, and we also see the events in the past that shaped the people who have gathered to say good-bye to him. In that sense it's about a house, and its ghosts. All houses, unless they're completely new, have ghosts in that sense, there's the feel of people having lived their lives there before you ever arrived..."

You're both very well known for your television work, and film, as well as theatre. Do you try to do theatre regularly or is it something that just happens when the parts are interesting enough? LB "I love being in a stage play, it's the purest form of acting, relating to a live audience."

AS "I agree, and it's important not to leave theatre too long - I once had a break of about six years, and that's too long - it's hard to get used to the learning lines and the discipline of eight performances a week..."

LB "People tend to think, when you're working in the theatre, that you're on to a rather cushy number - that you're just working two or three hours a night, but actually it takes up a lot of your time psychologically: I'm thinking about the evening performance from about 3pm that day, and I like to be physically close to the theatre, if not actually in my dressing room, from mid afternoon."

AS "It is a lot of physical work, and you have to treat your body like an athlete during the run of a play - you can't have very late nights after the show or you really suffer for it the next day, but on the other hand you're on an adrenalin rush after the curtain comes down and you feel like partying - certainly for an hour or so afterwards."

LB "When you're in a comedy people tend not to take you all that seriously - it's seen as easier than tragedy or straight drama, when actually it can be harder. Comedy deserves more recognition than it gets - there ought to be an Oscars for comedy!"

AS "It's amazing how differently audiences react to the comedy in Losing Louis. Some nights they're much more vocal than others, however much they're enjoying it. Sometimes it's hard work to bring them on board, other times they're sailing from the moment we start. The other day we had a wonderful audience - they were so into the play: they laughed at one line that's never had a laugh before and they were so in to what was going on that they more or less saw what was coming and were laughing almost before we said the lines - we had to struggle to keep up with them! And you can only get that with live theatre."

What for you is the most impressive aspect of the play? AS "Simon [Mendes da Costa, the playwright] has created such clear characters. They're very well placed, socially and geographically, and we talk about Elizabeth, Linda's character, long before she arrives, so when she comes on stage the audience know what to expect from her. Yet all the characters have moved on, emotionally, by the end of the play. They've all changed, and for the better, so good comes out of what happens, even if it's painful for them."

LB "As well as being a very funny play it's the perfect length - about two hours, fifteen minutes. From my point of view it was a surprise that I have to be naked - albeit through a frosted glass, where you see my bottom as my character and her husband have sex in the bathroom. Having plucked up the courage to do this I get a bit annoyed when people, having seen my bottom through the glass, ask whether I have a 'bottom double' who stands in for me!"

How do you like to relax after the show - any favourite theatre restaurants? LB "The Ivy, the Caprice and the Wolseley, I guess."

AS "I also like Joe Allen's as it's very theatrical and you can let your hair down without worrying what people will think."

Do you get recognised much in public and do you mind if you are? AS "Sometimes, and people react differently: they might clock that it's you and ignore you, or you'll hear them say 'Oh, look, isn't that, you know...' or occasionally they'll come up and say hello. If you go about your business in a normal way without putting on airs and being 'the star' then people by and large react well and don't bother you. I did have an American woman come up to me the other day and say how much she and her mother had enjoyed Pride and Prejudice - in fact they'd worn the tape out!"

The fact that Losing Louis deals with family problems and how they come to the surface after a funeral, means it's something most people can relate to, and the writer has tapped into the fact that, despite what you might think, funerals can be very funny - as Joe Orton did in Loot... LB "Exactly, which is why it makes a great night out..."

How long are you booked into the Trafalgar Studios for? AS "To the end of June, but don't wait that long to buy tickets - we'd like to see your readers now!"

Buy Losing Louis tickets

By Paul Webb
Thursday March 24