There was a course on offer at RADA whose object was to provide a background to the practical training that was the main function of the drama school. Staffed by true academic theatre luminaries of the day, such as Phyllis Hartnoll and Muriel St. Clare Byrne, the lectures covered history of drama and costume. That’s when I learned of the nuances of comparative acting styles from Burbage, to Betterton, to Garrick, to Macklin, to Kean, to Forbes-Robertson, to Irving through to modern times.
Fascinatingly there still lived, and was to be seen on our stages, a direct link with the acting style of the recent past, illustrated by a chap called Donald Wolfit. He was born just one year after Queen Victoria’s death and our teachers assured us that he had caught the flavour of – and clearly admired – many aspects of the ‘old school’ of acting.
I saw him many times and it was true. Yet he was, by any standards, a very fine actor. I was so intrigued to have been around to see this living link with the past that I couldn’t fail to honour him as the opening topic in Are You Going to do That Little Jump? – The Adventure Continues
