Bringing Trollope back to life in Cork

For actor Edward Fox, conveying a sense of ‘backbone’ has proven a bankable resource. It’s not surprising then, that it is being called upon again in his latest one-man show, Trollope

READERS OF Anthony Trollope will find it amusingly appropriate that the genesis of the production built around his clerical characters was in a church.

Compiled by Director Richard Digby Day of the London Dramatic Academy, the piece was designed as a fund-raising event for the restoration of the Hawksmoor building in London where, as it happened, Trollope was baptised in 1815.

Now completely renewed, St George’s, Bloomsbury, was the setting where the Rt Rev Richard Charters, Bishop of London, played Archdeacon Grantly in a cast which, at the suggestion of John Julius Norwich, included Edward Fox.

According to Fox, “That was when I wondered why I had neglected Trollope for so many years. I had read his novels but without taking him seriously enough, this man whose work declares that he is a great writer and must be, should be, read.”

It was producer Clive Conway who later contacted Digby Day with a proposal for a one-man performance piece based on the Barchester novels with their concentration of clergymen – and indeed of clergy wives, with the indomitable Mrs Proudie to the fore. "It was terribly difficult choosing just one extract from each of the Barchester series," says Digby Day, admitting that while he had first considered using the Palliser novels, these will now become the strand uniting a new compilation including The Eustace Diamondsand Phineas Finn.

Edward Fox has always been good at moral weight. Even as the eponymous hit-man in The Day of the Jackel(1973) he suggested a fibrous tenacity of purpose; later significant roles picked from a cv of rare variety and undeviating quality whether in film, stage or television suggest that education at Harrow and the Coldstream Guards inculcated what might be called backbone, a stiff-upper-lip persona which has proved both marketable and memorable.

"Quintessential" seems to fit when considering his roles in films such as The Shooting Partyor The Go-Betweenand of course the wayward Edward VIII in the television drama Edward and Mrs Simpson. But in a career which ranged from Force 10 from Navaroneto Dickens and Agatha Christie, taking in James Bond and Gandhi on the way and still trotting along with Foyle's Warand Midsomer MurdersFox can represent all the givens of a background which included his mother Angela Worthington as the reputed inspiration for Noel Coward's Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage...

In fact, mentioning relatives can be almost too much: Fox is married to Joanna David whose long list of theatre and television credits rivals his own, his younger brother is the actor James Fox, his daughter Emilia is – you get the picture.

All the same, his recent run of An Evening with Anthony Trollopeat London's Riverside Theatre might be taxing for a 74-year old actor, even one of his experience and stamina.

“Not really. I would only get tired if I thought the piece wasn’t going to hold up. A six-week run isn’t long at all – it should be six months at least before you get weary. It’s part of the job to make it seem as if the production is new every time for every audience: they’ve paid in so one has to do it the best one can.”

There's an almost carefree element in the way Fox describes his current activities, which include his early Sunday evening performances of The Four Quartetsby TS Eliot, also at the Riverside. It's quite a switch from Trollope to Eliot except that he's worked on Eliot pieces since 1973: "It's like Shakespeare, Eliot never really leaves your mind. And it's quite a civilised thing to do these days: lots of people came to hear it, people like to hear poetry and I don't think they are given the chance, or enough chances, to really experience aspects of art which might be helpful to their lives." The early life of Anthony Trollope was one of desperate unhappiness, penury, and self-doubt, a misery eventually relieved when he was sent to Ireland to organise the postal service in 1841 and discovered what he described as "the first good fortune of my life. . ." He also found his wife, and the material for several of his novels, including his first, The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847) which was quickly followed by The Kellys and the O'Kellys and, in 1855, by The Warden, the first of the Barchester series.

“I think the Warden is the most likable of all Trollope’s characters,” says Fox, when trying to decide on his favourite. “He’s such a morally strong man, one who never gives in. He’s an extraordinary creation and he’s written with an extraordinary moral force.”

Edward Fox is bringing Anthony Trollope (who would have known something of the city while based in Mallow) to Cork. He’s coming at the invitation of Pat Talbot of the Everyman Palace, who says that although familiar with Fox on screen he had missed several opportunities to see him on stage, and here was a new opportunity.

Acknowledging the revival of interest in costume drama Fox only concedes a beard, albeit an impressive one, as his Victorian accoutrement for this presentation. Belonging to London’s Savile Club himself he likes to suggest the setting of a 19th century gentleman’s club as a way of drawing the audience into an imaginary world. But unless Hollywood rings he’s not making many further plans except, perhaps, for “more of this kind of thing.”

Although he believes now that older actors are considered less useful, “the fact is that the theatre is so important that we’re extremely useful, especially if an audience goes home having had a really great time.”

Trollope is at the Everyman Palace, Cork, on April 27th–28th.