Elizabeth Spriggs R.I.P.

[julian_craster]

Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs Jennings in Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility [1995]

Elizabeth Spriggs



Daily Telegraph

03/07/2008

Actress who made her name with Peter Hall's RSC and excelled in television costume dramas.



Elizabeth Spriggs, who died on Wednesday aged 78, was a versatile actress on stage and screen, and became familiar to television viewers in the role of Nan in Shine On Harvey Moon.



In the 1960s she brilliantly justified Peter Hall's new policy of turning the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon from a seasonal set-up with a new star-led cast every season into a permanent company.



Joining it aged 36 as an unknown but soundly-trained character actress, she stayed for 14 years to become one of its most accomplished, reliable and mature leading players.



Elizabeth Spriggs went on to star at the National Theatre as well as on television. She was the kind of serious-minded, though never solemn, performer for whom the play was the thing; she never asked herself whether it suited her career.



Acting for Elizabeth Spriggs could be a painful experience: "You have to be open to new ideas. It's a little like an open wound, never healing ... It's vital to be constantly stretched ... I hated most of my disciplining, but it taught me more than technique."



From the age of 11 she had nursed hopes of acting at Stratford-on-Avon, and from the day she did so 25 years later for Hall's newly-formed Royal Shakespeare Company she never ceased to celebrate her luck.



At that time she was nearing middle age. She was not beautiful, and she could not hope for glamorous roles. But she was mature, intelligent, experienced and patient; and she developed over the years into one of the RSC's most valued assets who, now and then, brought real distinction to her acting.



Her Gertrude, for example, to David Warner's Hamlet was rated by one experienced critic as "among the best in living memory". Her Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, her Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor and her Maria in Twelfth Night also won high praise.



But the performance which stuck longest in most playgoers' memories came with the whip and riding breeches she sported opposite Donald Sinden in London Assurance. As Lady Gay Spanker in Dion Boucicault's 19th-century comedy in the Restoration style, she addressed her friends and relations as if they were quadrupeds; her acting was a triumph of high comedy.



Although she went on to do admirable work with the National Theatre Company when Peter Hall took over as artistic director from Laurence Olivier, it was her work with the RSC which took her to the top of her profession.



Elizabeth Spriggs was born on September 18 1929 at Buxton, Derbyshire, and was educated there and in Coventry before training for the stage at the Royal School of Music. She taught speech and drama at Coventry Technical College and privately.



This was a career path, however, that brought her no fulfilment: "I felt as if I was dying inside. The desire to act was like a weight within me, and I knew if I didn't do anything it would destroy me." In 1953 she got the opportunity to join the Bristol Old Vic, and after several seasons she moved to the Birmingham Rep, where her roles included Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Madame Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard (1958).



In 1962 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the following Aldwych season she played Mrs Vixen in The Beggar's Opera, Mother in The Representative by Rolf Hochhuth, Ida Mortemarte in Roger Vitrac's Victor and Rossignol in Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade.



At Stratford-on-Avon in 1965 her roles included Courtezan in The Comedy of Errors, Phrynia in Timon of Athens and a blowsy Gertrude to David Warner's Hamlet – considered by JC Trewin to be "among the best in living memory, a shallow woman terrified by the pressure of events she could not comprehend".



At the Aldwych she played Chairman Maudsley in David Mercer's one-acter, The Governor's Lady; Locksmith's Wife in The Government Inspector by Gogol; and Gertrude again in Hamlet, which she repeated at Stratford-on-Avon in 1966.



She also appeared at Stratford as Mistress Quickly in Henry IV Parts I and II; as the hostess in Henry V; the Widow in All's Well That Ends Well; a Witch in Macbeth; and as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet to Estelle Kohler's Juliet. In the last two of these she toured to Helsinki, Leningrad and Moscow before playing at the Aldwych in 1968.



Back at Stratford that year she played Portia in Julius Caesar, Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor and – at the Aldwych in 1969 – Claire in A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee. Repeating her Mistress Ford at Stratford, she also played Livia in Middleton's Women Beware Women, Paulina in The Winter's Tale and Maria in Twelfth Night. Her 1970 triumph as Lady Gay Spanker in London Assurance was also seen on Broadway in 1974.



Other roles for the RSC included Lady Britomart in Shaw's Major Barbara; a warmly sympathetic Emilia to Brewster Mason's Othello (Stratford 1971); the Duchess of York in Richard II for the Theatregoround touring company; and a sunny, complacent and busy Beatrice to Derek Godfrey's Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, rediscovering, as one critic put it, "a capacity for love she had long since laid aside".



Among notable performances at the National Theatre were Madam Arcati, Noël Coward's tweedy, suburban and eccentric medium in Blithe Spirit (1976), and the tarty tobacconist with a heart of gold who seduces young men and corrects the shortcomings of others in Tom Stoppard's version of Odon von Horvath's Tales From the Vienna Woods.



At the National she was also the indomitable Lady Would-Be in Volpone, and the frightful Lady Fidget in Wycherley's Country Wife. As the stoical wife of Michael Gough's dying trades unionist in Arnold Wesker's Love Letters on Blue Paper (Cottesloe, 1978) she won the West End Managers' prize for the best supporting actress of the London season.



Among her numerous television credits were Shine on Harvey Moon, in which she played Harvey's mother, Nan; the title role of Hannah in Victorian Scandals; Dilecta in the Balzac serial Prometheus; Maud Lowther in Wings of a Dove; Frade in The Dybbuk; and Calpurnia in Julius Caesar. She also appeared in the ever-popular Midsomer Murders (she was a murder victim in the very first episode). She was Connie Fox in the serial Fox, the wife in We, The Accused, and she had the title role in The Kindness of Mrs Radcliffe. In Strangers and Brothers she played Lady Muriel Royce and the Mistress in Those Glory, Glory Days.



She also played The Witch in Simon and the Witch, and appeared in Gentleman and Players, Watching, Boon and Survival of the Fittest. She was in Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, The Old Devils, Heartbeat and Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.



Elizabeth Spriggs appeared as the formidable Aunt Agatha in Jeeves and Wooster and had parts in several Alan Bennett plays, including Bognor, Intensive Care and Our Winnie. She was a staple of costume drama, featuring in adaptations of both Our Mutual Friend and Martin Chuzzlewit (in the latter she excelled as the gin-sodden midwife Sairey Gamp) as well as the BBC's version of Middlemarch.



Her feature film credits included Peter Hall's Work Is A Four-Letter World, An Unsuitable Job For a Woman, The Cold Room, Sakharov, Parker and Yellow Pages. In 1995 she appeared as Mrs Jennings in Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and in 2001 was the Fat Lady in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.



Elizabeth Spriggs met her third husband, Murray Manson, in 1972 when he was working as a minicab driver and she was starring at the Albery in London Assurance. He survives her with the daughter of her first marriage.

[dpgmel]

Such sad news.



Only recently watched her with Richard Johnson in "Anglo Saxon Attitudes" in which she was terrific.



R I P

[Chevyman]

A very talented lady who I adored watching



RIP

[batman]

RIP Ms Spriggs.

[wadsy]

An Excellent Actress! R.I.P

[hankoler]

I loved watching this lady , a great talent lost to us all . R I P.

[EHV_Emmetts]

R.I.P. Ms. Spriggs.

[Marky B]

Elizabeth Spriggs,RIP

Mark

[Dame Starry]

A fantastic actress - a great loss.







DS x.

[Mark O]

First I've heard of this, I'm saddened.......



Loved 'Shine on Harvey moon', particularly when the series carried on after the War and gave an inkling of late 40's life, even though it was semi-Comedy



Plus she excelled as formidable Clapham Matriarch Mrs Fox in 'Fox'



I also recall her in an episode of Bergerac, repeated not so long ago.....



R.I.P. Elizabeth......

[Geoffers]

I was watching her in the TV series "Playing the Field" just the other night, playing opposite James Ellis, both were excellent. I also remember her from Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. A very versatile actress.

[David Brent]

A very fine actress. She played many great parts.



I particularly remember her as the strange Iris Rainbird in Midsomer Murders.



R.I.P



Dave.

[sippog]

Fantastic actress and very warm and friendly person. How sad.

[Ray]

That is such a sad coincidence. I have recently bought Shine on Harvey Moon on DVD. I loved it so much that I also bought the 4 disc set of Fox. I was watching it all last week, the same week that she died. A wonderful actress who will be much missed!

[midnight sheep]

Just watched her in an episode of the excellent 6 part series Time For Murder.It's now out on Acorn region 1.

[April Dancer]

I've only just seen this. A great loss. I am a huge Shine on Harvey Moon fan and grew up with her as my 'nan'.



Very sad news - a fine actress and a lovely lady. RIP Elizabeth.

[Azanti]

She seemed like a wonderful lady.



RIP

[jch]

A very talented actress, she will be greatly missed.

[jane marques]

Hearing death of this wonderful character actress am v sad. Her acting & characterisations so good and remain in memory like her Mrs Gamp in Chuzzlewit, cake guzzling blackmailer Midsomer and earlier in Oranges. Will be sadly missed.