Barbara Jefford
'In Conversation' 1This week's guest:
Barbara Jefford, currently appearing as Anne of Austria in Power in the Cottesloe.
Barbara Jefford was last at the National in 2002 in the Loft Season of new plays in Sanctuary. She was in the opening production at the Olivier theatre playing Zabina in Tamburlaine the Great with Albert Finney, also playing Gertrude to his Hamlet. Later productions at the National include Fathers and Sons, Six Characters in Search of an Author and Ting Tang Mine. Her present role of Anne of Austria she also played in 1949 in a version of The Three Musketeers, in the same year playing her first Shakespeare lead, Viola. 1950 found her at Stratford-upon-Avon playing Isabella to the Angelo of John Gielgud, following this with such roles as Hero, Lady Percy, Rosalind, Desdemona, Helena, Calphurnia and Katherina. Shortly afterwards she played opposite a Stratford colleague, Michale Redgrave, in Tiger at the Gates in the West End and on Broadway, returning at Michael Benthall's invitation to embark on a period of work at the Old Vic which saw her play Imogen, Isabella, Portia, Rosalind, Tamora, Queen Margaret in Henry IV, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Viola and Beatrice among Shakespeare roles. She also played Beatrice in Shelly's The Cenci and Joan in Shaw's St Joan, emulating her friend Sybil Thorndike. Many of these productions toured the USA, the USSR, the Middle East and Europe, and she returned from the last of the US tours to start a period of work with Frank Hauser's Oxford Playhouse which included the first of her three Cleopatras, Racine's Phedre and Lina in Misalliance which transferred to the Criterion Theatre. Other West End plays include Ride A Cock Horse, Filumena, Mistress of Novices and The Dark Horse, as well as the Almeida's Racine Season at the Albery Theatre. With this company she also played her second Volumnia opposite Ralph Fiennes in London, New York and Tokyo, her first being at Stratford with Charles Dance. She has repeated many Shakespeare roles in her long career, appearing in 54 productions of all but four of his plays. The last of these was Michael Grandage's Richard III with Kenneth Branagh, in which she played Queen Margaret, previously appearing with Derek Jacobi, her Old Vic son as Hamlet in the play at the Phoenix Theatre. Her film debut was James Joyce's Molly Bloom in Ulysses for which she gained a British Academy Award nomination, others include The Shoes of the Fisherman, Fellini's And The Ship Sails On, Reunion, Where Angels Fear To Tread and Polanski's The Ninth Gate. Many TV credits include Lady Windemere's Fan, Walter, Edna, The Inebriate Woman, Porterhouse Blue, The House of Elliott and A Village Affair. Extensive radio credits date from Westward Ho! in 1946 while still a student. In 1965, following a tour of South American and European capitals, leading a company with Ralph Richardson to mark the Shakespeare Quartercentenary, she became the youngest person to receive an OBE.
'In Conversation' - A Summer series of informal conversations with National Theatre actors, chaired by Al Senter. Your chance to ask questions and find out more about their work over afternoon tea in the Terrace Café.
Doors open at 2.30pm (90 mins)
Tickets £8 (including tea)
Barbara Jefford finished on: 8 August 2003
