There's nothing like . . . a special birthday!
On Wednesday I am having a special birthday. Today I am having a very special birthday party. It’s happening on the stage of London’s London Palladium where I am going to be joined by some very special people – among them:
Dame Eileen Atkins
Dame Floella Benjamin
Dame Joan Collins
Dame Judi Dench
Dame Sheila Hancock
Dame Twiggy Lawson
Dame Maureen Lipman
Dame Joanna Lumley
Dame Patricia Routledge
Dame Harriet Walter
Dame Penelope Wilton
. . . to name but a few!
In fact, there will be more Theatrical Dames gathered on the stage of the London Palladium today than have ever appeared together on the same stage before.
Between them the cast (including one or two surprise guests) will represent more than a thousand years of theatrical experience!
In the 1918 New Year Honours, the Liverpool-born actress, May Whitty, was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, gazetted under her married name of Mary Louise Webster, in recognition of her charitable work during the First World War. May Whitty was our first theatrical Dame. In 1897, the great Victorian actor-manager, Henry Irving, had become the first theatrical knight. In 1925, Irving’s stage partner, Ellen Terry, was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. Since then, fifty British actresses have become Dames, honoured for their work on stage and screen and in public and charitable service. Some were British-born but became American citizens. Judith Anderson was Australian. A few, like Sibyl Thorndike, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, were further honoured by becoming Companions of Honour.
When I told my wife that I was going to be 75 on 8 March 2023, she was surprised. She thought I was much older! When I told her that I wanted to celebrate my 75th birthday by raising £ 75,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital, she was delighted. Kitt, the youngest of our seven grandchildren, spent the best part of a year as a Great Ormond Street cancer patient when he was a baby. Recently he was given his five-year ‘all clear’ and, of course, while the regular check-ups will continue, this felt like a good time to say ‘thank you’ to GOSH and all the remarkable people who do such extraordinary work there. They have big plans for their cancer services at GOSH and I have high hopes that from today we will be raising rather more than our target. If, reading this, you feel inspired to help, too, thank you! You can find out more here: www.gosh.org.
Don’t ask me why (‘Please don’t ask him,’ cries my wife from the kitchen, ‘or he’ll tell you!’), but I have had a bit of ‘thing’ about theatrical dames since I was quite small. The first I encountered was Dame Sybil Thorndike, Bernard Shaw’s original Saint Joan. When I was a little boy in the 1950s, living with my parents in Lower Sloane Street in Chelsea, Dame Sibyl lived nearby and we used to meet her waiting at the bus stop. She was a keen Christian Socialist and a natural enthusiast. ‘Oh Lewis,’ she said to her husband, Lewis Casson, when they were both in their eighties, ‘if only we could be the first actors to play on the moon!’
In the 1960s, I was lucky enough to see Dame Edith Evans and Dame Margaret Rutherford on stage. In the 1970s, as a young producer, I was lucky enough to work with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Dame Flora Robson, Dame Celia Johnson and Dame Anna Neagle. Over the years I worked often with Dame June Whitfield and appeared in pantomime with Dame Barbara Windsor. My wife and I have happy memories, too, of meeting Dame Angela Lansbury and Dame Olivia de Havilland. (Aged 100, Dame Olivia entertained us to champagne and canapés in her Paris apartment, her two Oscars gleaming on the sideboard immediately behind her.)
I first saw Judi Dench on stage at the Old Vic in the late 1950s. Half a century later, we started doing a show together celebrating her extraordinary career. (We call it ‘I remember it well’ because often we don’t! We are doing it again at Hampton Court on 11 June and in Edinburgh on 8 August. Come if you can.) I am so grateful to Dame Judi and all the other dazzling dames who are joining me at the Palladium today. Some of them I have known since I was in my twenties; some of them are newer friends. I am indebted to them all. It is their talent – and their generosity – that has made today’s birthday show possible. I am grateful, too, to my friends Stefan Bednarczyk and Bonnie Langford, who are adding their musical genius to the proceedings – as well as to all the people behind the scenes, at the Palladium, at Fane Productions and at Dukes Education, who have helped to make the show happen.
Yes, I am 75 and appearing for the first time on the stage of the legendary London Palladium with a dozen of the most gifted actresses in the world today. It seems dreams can come true, if you live long enough.