Perthshire remembers top actress Edith
Tributes have been paid to a Scottish actress who was a favourite at Perthshire theatres.
Edith MacArthur passed away on Thursday, April 26 at the grand age of 92. While popular on TV for her roles as the lady laird in Take the High Road, Dr Finlay’s Casebook and Sutherland’s Law, the elegant performer was a darling of the stage in Perth and Pitlochry and will be deeply missed.
She first appeared on the stage at Perth Theatre in the 1950s and returned many times in a variety of roles.
Mike Griffiths, interim chief executive, Horsecross Arts said:“I was very fortunate to work with her and I have fond memories of her as not only an extraordinary actor but as a genuine, elegant and charming person to work with.”
Lu Kemp, artistic director, Perth Theatre also paid warm tribute to the actress: “I had the great good fortune to work with Edith MacArthur on radio while still young in my career.
“She was, I know, very dear to Perth Theatre audiences, and audiences everywhere. We are lucky to have known her and her work.”
Pitlochry Festival Theatre mourned the passing of a treasured actress who made numerous appearances there in years gone by.
Along with Jimmy Logan, Una Edith MacArthur
McLean, and Leon Sinden, Edith was a star of many Pitlochry seasons.
She worked the repertoire of 1988, 1990, 1996, 1999, and 2002 - by which time she had been made a MBE.
Richard Baron, regular PFT director and season director for 2018, said:“I was fortunate enough to direct Edith in four productions at PFT, including her memorable Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night and Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.
“She will also be remembered by Pitlochry audiences for her superb performance as Ranevskaya in the Cherry Orchard and the title role in Bridie’s Daphne Laureola.
“Famously elegant and gracious but extremely practical, and possessed of an infectious sense of humour, she was widely regarded as the finest Scottish actress of her generation.”
Edith’s affection for performing at the‘Theatre in the Hills’is clear when in 2001, she wrote: “Where but in Pitlochry could one play so many wonderful and contrasting roles - with such directors, casts, sets, costumes, stage-crews - and audiences?
“This theatre sparkles during the day as brightly as the water it stands beside, and at night it dazzles.”
Watching her performance in 1999, The Summertime Is Come, director Clive Perry noted that audiences “would never see her like again”.