 |
|
|
|||
|
Interviews
|
|||
|
|
Tamara Ustinov - "Returning Home" Peter Lathan talks to actress Tamara Ustinov, daughter of Sir Peter, as she rehearses for The Cello and the Nightingale at York Theatre Royal. With a CV that includes work in the West End, the Bush, the Traverse, the Royal Court, the Young Vic, Chichester, Birmingham Rep and a New York appearance at the Circle on the Square in the Young Vic production of Scapino with Jim Dale, directed by Frank Dunlop, as well as many TV and radio credits and an award-winning audio book, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James, Tamara Ustinov might be forgiven for being annoyed that a web search for her name turns up thousands of mentions of two horror films she did in the early seventies (Blood on Satan's Claw (1970) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)) and not much else, but she laughs it off. "That's horror film fanatics! But Satan's Claw was a good film with a really good cast. It's stood the test of time." The York production (which opens on 14th May and runs to 15th June) is almost like a return home for her, for she began her career at the Theatre Royal as an acting ASM (assistant stage manager), playing Juno in the masque in The Tempest ("Four lines!"), which toured to Holland. Since then, she says, "I've done a bit of everything, really." She is from a theatrical family - not only is she the daughter of Sir Peter Ustinov but her aunt is Angela Lansbury and her grandfather was Reginald Denham who wrote Ladies in Retirement and was a director in America - but it wasn't, she feels, inevitable that she would go into theatre. "I've got half-brothers and -sisters and they're all doing completely different things.One's a scupltor, one's a jewellery designer and one's a writer. So they're all doing their own things." It was very much her own choice to go into theatre. "Like everybody else, you start very young - school plays and that sort of thing. You just get hooked, and that's it!" She is currently rehearsing The Cello and the Nightingale by Patricia Cleveland Peck, the story of the internationally acclaimed cellist, Beatrice Harrison (Bridget Forsyth), who in 1924 took part in the very first BBC outside broadcast, duetting with the nightingales in her garden in Surrey. At home with her sisters, she looks back on her eventful life. Tamara plays Monica, the only member of the family who didn't play a stringed instrument. She was a singer who gave up her career quite early on to look after the others who were both professional musicians. This was one of the things that attracted her to the part. "It's a quiet character, an interesting part to play. "I love singing. I was in the English premiere of Brecht's Rich and Rich at the Nottingham Playhouse, which I enjoyed enormously. This gives me the chance to do some singing again!" She just, she says, likes the idea of the play. "It's a mood piece, almost like a piece of music. It's an experience, not necessarily dramatic, but with a mood, a very strong identity of its own. The cello is almost a character on its own, so it's a very intriguing idea. "It's a small cast and we've worked very intensely. It's a very interesting project to be part of." Will the play tour? "Well, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, so we don't really know. We'll have to wait and see how it goes!"
|
||
|
|
