Sir Alan Ayckbourn remembers his days with Sir Donald Wolfit
in Actors and Performers, Playwrights, Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama
13th October 2016
INTERVIEW: SIR ALAN AYCKBOURN. On the eve of the latest West End revival of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser, inspired by Harwood’s years working with Sir Donald Wolfit in the 1950s, Ayckbourn remembers the summer of 1956 when he joined the Wolfit company at the Edinburgh Festival for a production of The Strong Are Lonely by Fritz Hochwälder; his first professional job in the theatre after leaving school, and a life-changing event. Recorded by Dominic Cavendish in Scarborough, 12-09-2018.
“He had a huge face, one you could see from the back of the circle. He had these vast eyebrows and these enormous pores, he looked about nine foot, and in the pores he had the permanent remnants of five and nine, the make-up he had had in there for generations. It was a stage face. He made me flatten myself against the wall, really, because he had such a powerful personality.”
