Authors pay tribute to ‘witty’ acting legend

TRIBUTES were paid to Dame Maggie Smith on the opening weekend of this year’s Henley Literary Festival.

The actress, who passed away last Friday aged 89, was best known for her performances in Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films.

Gyles Brandreth gave a heartfelt tribute to his dear friend on Saturday at Phyllis Court Club, describing her as “irreplaceable”.

He also told the audience that she had a great sense of humour and enjoyed the Radio 4 panel show Just A Minute, which he himself regularly appears on.

Brandreth lamented the loss of a cherished companion and also the end of a golden era of British Theatre which Dame Maggie Smith was part of for decades.

Comedian and presenter Michael Palin recalled sharing the screen with her to his audience at Phyllis Court on Monday saying that she could be “difficult”.

The pair starred in the 1984 Alan Bennett comedy film, A Private Function, which follows a family in Yorkshire during the Second World War who struggle to rear a stolen pig for slaughter.

“Maggie was always quite difficult with people,” Palin said to laughter from the crowd. “A lot of acting in A Private Function involved the pig and the director had decided that we would do no cutaways of pigs, it all had to be in the action.

“We had three pigs, only one could act, and Maggie got increasingly frustrated about having to do shots again. There was one particular moment where the pig’s supposed to nibble fruit off the table and Maggie and I are supposed to rush into the room.

“There would be somebody saying, right, ‘the pig’s there, the pig’s up on the chair, go towards it, oh no it’s down’ and we would have to go back upstairs. This went on several times but in the end it did a brilliant take. They said ‘Oh the pig’s there it’s lovely, we are ready!’ and Maggie refused to come down. She said ‘it ‘cried wolf too many times or cried pig too many times, I'm not coming down.’”

Palin, who also starred with Smith in 1982’s The Missionary, recalled Dame Maggie’s quick wit while out for dinner.

He said: “The other thing that I remember, which was very ‘Maggie-ish’, was when we went for a meal at the Box Tree Cottage in Yorkshire, a very smart restaurant, and I got a piece of glass in my mixed salad.

“The manager came over all sort of cringing and said ‘I’m so sorry about the mixed salad’ and Maggie just said: ‘A very mixed salad’. She didn’t need to say anything more than that.”

Palin went on to discuss the latest volume of his diaries, There and Back, which chronicles his life from 1999 to 2009 and touches upon his close friendship with George Harrison, the former Beatle who lived in Henley, his televised journeys to the Sahara and Himalayas and the birth of his first grandchild. Talking about his childhood Palin described himself as slightly restless. He said: “I loved other places other than where I was. I was quite happy in Sheffield but I loved any books or magazines that showed parts of the world that weren’t where I lived.

“I think because I realised growing up in Sheffield in the Forties and Fifties that's where you would be for the rest of your life. And so, for me, there was this little sort of temptation of travel. We had a very good geography master at school and what I most liked about him was he took us out of the school pretty quickly.

“We went to Nottingham because that was the furthest we could get on the school bus and he took us to the John Player cigarette factory. I mean, imagine that 10-year-old was dying for a fag and there were millions of them pouring off the production line. We were given packets of 50 cigarettes for our parents. My parents didn't even smoke.”

He also recalled meeting other members of the Monty Python troupe whilst trying to make it in the comedy world in London after graduating from Oxford. He described John Cleese, whom he met whilst working on the The Frost Report, as brilliant, if not unpredictable.

Palin said: “John was writing brilliant stuff and was a great performer but also John would do things quite out of the blue that were kind of odd.

“I remember just very shortly after we met up with him, we'd had lunch and we were walking to the BBC office through Shepherd's Bush, and Terry [Jones] was there beside John, talking and John suddenly put his hand out and pushed Terry over a wall into someone's garden.

“Of course, Terry was immediately, oh, what did you do that for? And John just walked on. So, I mean, that's quite a strange behaviour, isn't it? But it got a good laugh in the end. I mean, I was absolutely in stitches.”

The literary festival, which started on Saturday and runs until ???? is in its 18th year and features ???? talks at different venues around the town by authors from all walks of life, from TV personalities to politicians.

Other authors to feature in the first week include sprinter Iwan Thomas, chef Rik Stein, presenter Gabby Logan and poet Michael Rosen, as well as many children’s entertainment events including a Beano comic workshop.

On Sunday James Middleton, brother to Kate, the Princess of Wales, talked to journalist Bryony Gordon about his book Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, about his close bond with his first dog as well as a deeply personal account of his battle with depression.

To the audience’s delight Middleton, who now has six dogs, two golden retrievers and four cocker spaniels, was joined on stage by three of them. WHERE???

Royal biographer Robert Hardman recounted the story of the moment King Charles found out about the death of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

Mr Hardman, who was interviewed by rower Dame Katherine Grainger at Phyllis Court on ????? said the King had been travelling back to Balmoral castle to visit his mother.

He said: “He was driving up the estate backroads, driving at some speed and someone in the back received a phone call from the switchboard. They handed it to his private secretary who said, ‘Sir, I’m afraid you’re going to have to stop the car’ and handed him the phone.

“That is the moment he was addressed as ‘Your Majesty’ for the first time.”

The book covers the King’s first year and gives insider details to the story of the landmark transition period.

Mr Hardman described how the King set about his royal duties as monarch almost immediately.

He said: “Everyone who loses a loved one is told to go and have a few days off to sort yourself out and deal with it, but as monarch, you have to start organising stuff. That afternoon there was paper in front of him to appoint the new Metropolitan police commissioner. The red boxes keep going.”

Mr Hardman described how one of the new King’s first duties was to inform the other members of the family of the Queen’s death and less than 24 hours later he was flown down to London to address the nation as King.

Described the atmosphere outside Buckingham Palace as Charles arrived Mr Hardman said: “He goes up to the first person with his hand outstretched and there’s this woman in floods of tears who says, ‘I don’t want to give you a handshake, I want to give you a hug,’ and does.

“It was a moment where if you’re looking in ways his reign is different from the last, no one would have dreamt of trying to hug Elizabeth II.”

On Sunday evening Strictly Come Dancing judge Anton du Beke addressed an audience at the town hall about his latest fiction novel A Dance for the King,

The book follows ballroom dancer and British solider Raymond de Guise, on his return to London from North Africa in 1942 and his surprise involvement in a plot to save the King.

The star of the long-running BBC series said he believed his life as a professional ballroom lent itself to writing. He admitted that whilst he had not always held ambitions to be a writer specifically, he had always enjoyed storytelling.

Du Beke said: “I always wanted to do stories and dancing was a great avenue to tell stories through. It's just kind of the story and the narrative is everything.

“I didn’t want people to buy my book because they liked the way I danced. I wanted my books to be great on their own.”

Du Beck told the audience that he preferred to write historical fiction as he was fascinated by the quirks of everyday life in the forties, such as calling in on a neighbour rather than picking up the phone.

Since publishing his debut novel in 2018, he has published several other novels all set in the world of the Buckingham, a fictional hotel in London, which follow, among others, a troupe of ballroom dancers employed to entertain the guests.