Beyond the Roundels

I am being bad at posting and I am actually really enjoying the Stuff I Love meme, both seeing other people's posts and self-indulgently going on about things I love. I am tired, though, so let me be obvious tonight.

Anyone who's been following me for more than about two minutes will have gathered that as well as obscure old telly I love obscure old actors who appear in it. It was an inevitable consequence, really. David Collings, Barbara Murray, Alfred Burke, Suzanne Neve, Gemma Jones and a bunch of others. David Collings is the person whose fault it was, and who dies improbably and entertainingly a lot. But my current favourite is James Maxwell. I would explain myself, and there is a sort of explanation in there somewhere that started with David Collings and BBC period drama but it passed through Sapphire and Steel fancasting and theatrical ghost stories and a nice obit, to "I just like your face, sir" and then what can you do?

Anyway, James Maxwell was a character actor who was one of the founding artistic directors of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, which he is now reputed to haunt. He was actually American, but came to the UK to study at the Old Vic Theatre School in 1950 and stayed here till he died in 1995.

Things I like about him:

1. He crossed an ocean because of Dame Edith Evans. (Literally: he went to see her in the theatre and no less than two days later he was on board a ship for the UK, arriving in Southampton with no forwarding address.)

2. The ghost story about him can basically be boiled down to "his colleagues wanted to have him still around." Bonus for the ghost story: he is said to have made an appearance on TV from beyond the grave on Most Haunted. Not something everyone can claim.


3. He was very into Britain-as-part-of-Europe. It is probably as well he isn't alive to see his adopted country right now. (I'm not making that up from things: he was even at a conference of Eurocrats to talk about the influence of European and particularly German theatre on UK theatre, among several other things. I don't have many of his words, but a bunch of the ones I do have are about Europe.)


4. I like his stupid face.




5. Random barometer:




6. Out of all the things I have seen him in, he has never (yet) been in any appalling films (that I've seen), unlike other people I have followed about. He was very literary and clever, and I think, luck and connections and ITC serials for the cash aside, he had good judgement about scripts that I will find interesting in at least some way. He was responsible for helping to judge the Royal Exchange's new play award for several years. It's a very useful trick for a favourite actor anyway.)


7. Monkey:




8. He has completely ruined the crypt scene in all versions of Dracula for me forever. Bless him.



DON'T HURT THE FLOWERS, VAN HELSING!! (I failed to gif the bit where Van Helsing is careless with the flowers. Also the bit where Dr Seward cries while Van Helsing does the staking, but I laugh at all the other Dr Sewards now. They would disown this one.)


9. He is very dedicated to holding people's hands whenever he can.



(I have lost a lot of particularly epic hand-holding gifs, so you will have to make do until I replace them.)


10. He can faint, and quite often does.



(Not always in a car.)

11. Sometimes people drop him in swimming pools or leave him out in the rain.




12. Best Henry VII ever. (I mean, I realise there is not much competition and it's maybe not a title a person wants to hold, but facts are facts.)




13. Paperfolding is a skill.




14. Sometimes he is very annoyed when people keep trying to tell him his computer is killing people.



(Unfortunately he was in Doomwatch at the time, so his computer was killing people as he forgot to tell it not to. He felt really bad about it.)


Anyway, I like him. David Collings is obviously improbable; James Maxwell seems completely normal and boring until you look at him and then realise he's probably even more improbable in his own way. He doesn't die as often or as ridiculously, though, nor has he ever made his entrance by flinging cream tarts about the place. I wouldn't want to make silly claims on his behalf, and no one is deader than David Collings.






I was prompted to post this particular entry today because someone on tumblr had found a new source of theatrical pics for him, which I shall now share, watermarks notwithstanding.


These were all new to me, via this site, where you can see larger versions.


Elektra, 1956, with Mary Morris. I was squinting at the enlarged version of this trying to work out which one was him, and then I realised there was a person with a pointy nose... who was tall and in a short skirt... and holding someone's hand. That'll be him.

Two from the Old Vic season under Michael Elliott (another of the Royal Echange's founders; they were a group who worked towards that aim from leaving drama school in about 1952):


As Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, with Sheila Allen as Portia.



As the Duke in Measure for Measure, with Dilys Hamlett (another of the group) as Isabella.


And this I had never seen anything from before. I knew that in the time between his retiring from the Royal Exchange in April 1995 and his death in August that year, he was in Hadrian VII at Chichester in May/June, and here is a pic of him in his final performance as Dr Talacryn:





I was going to write a sensible post about JM and do him justice (because actually he was a pretty interesting person and it has been fun trying to find out more about him and there is a lot to say) but I am tired. So you got the gifs that survived my tumblr-pocalypse.

But this list could have been a lot longer and had more gifs, so you can't complain too much. ;-p


ETA: oh, also THIS LIST. <3