The Final Curtain Call

The theatrical world has recently lost three great men

- Michael Billington

THEATRE has its exits as well as its entrances. This week, I feel moved to pay tribute to three people who died recently: a great actor, Albert Finney; a theatrical allrounder, David Conville; and a dynamic producer, Duncan Weldon. I knew them all, to a greater or lesser extent, and feel their loss keenly.

Finney’s story, especially, fascinates me. I’ve seen various obituaries that describe him as the original ‘angry young man’ of British cinema and a specialist in kitchen-sink roles. It’s true that he first made an impact on screen as Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, but he was infinitely more than that. He could play the big heroic parts, such as Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and Pirandello’s Henry IV, was an accomplished farceur and excelled in the contemporary plays of John Osborne, Peter Nichols and Ronald Harwood.

An actor friend recalls being told by Finney that you have to go out on stage as if you ‘own the space’—that ability to relish the art of performing characterised everything I saw him do.

By a lucky accident of geography —I was brought up in Leamington Spa—I was able to watch his growth as a young actor at Birmingham Rep in 1956/7. He instantly revealed his exuberant inventiveness. I first spotted him in a whimsical Irish melodrama, Happy as Larry, in which he was one of a chorus of dancing tailors; with his stocky frame, mischievous grin and flattened centre parting, he was riveting.