Timothy West
‘Don’t take a wrecking ball to Shakespeare’
For Timothy West, all roads of late lead to Halifax. On a personal note, he’s already patron of the 18th-century Square Chapel arts centre. Professionally, it’s where he filmed last year’s Gentleman Jack (portraying “Jack”’s father). And now he’s back on our screens in the much-anticipated new series of Last
Tango in Halifax, playing Derek Jacobi’s long lost brother, Ted.
One of the finest classical actors of his generation, West, 85, has been a Londoner for a great many decades but was born a stone’s throw away from Halifax, in the city of Bradford. I find myself musing that it must be quite the treat to get out of the city and breathe lungfuls of fresh air on his home turf. Plus, television means a lot fewer lines to learn than theatre, which must surely be a relief too?
It turns out you can take the boy out of the West Riding but not the West Riding out of the boy. Bluntness runs through the blood like the river Calder in spate.
“No! No!” he cries. “To me theatre is everything – and far less stressful because I turn up at 6.55pm, the show goes up at 7.30, I do my bit, then it’s into the bar for a Talisker and a wind-down with the rest of the cast and then off home,” he says. “It’s far more civilised than being put up in some out-of-town hotel where I get woken up at 6am and driven to some godforsaken spot where I have to wait for hours to say a handful of lines for six different camera shots. Who wants that?”
West – I did mention he’s 85, didn’t I? – is not remotely as cantankerous as this might sound, not least because he finishes with the sort of avuncular Duchenne smile that bunches up his cheeks so tightly his eyes disappear.
We are in his rambling town house in south-west London, drinking tea from mugs in a booklined library, filled with a lifetime of quirky clutter and a highly polished baby grand. I can imagine that a man comfortable among first editions, hefty biographies and seminal works on dramatic theory might be less than enamoured of gusty hillsides. But even if the stunning Yorkshire scenery fails to impress, it’s always enjoyable catching up with his old friend Sir Derek.
“I was his father, Claudius, in
Hamlet, and his gay hairdresser lover in [the Sixties play] Staircase, so being cast as his brother feels like completing the hat-trick,” says West. “We chat about old times, mutual friends and acquaintances, the ones still alive, who are getting fewer.”
West made a brief appearance in a couple of episodes of the previous
Last Tango in Halifax series in 2016, when he attended Alan’s wedding to Northern powerhouse Celia, played by Anne Reid, then returned to his adoptive country, New Zealand.
“I was very pleased to be asked back,” beams West.
His return was signposted in the first episode of the new series last Sunday, and West will make his entrance this Sunday. It’s no spoiler to reveal that not only does he arrive with company in tow, he has been diagnosed with dementia.
Given that West’s own wife of 56 years, Prunella “Prue” Scales, aged 87, is in the grip of the same disease,
I find myself eggshelling round the painful way in which art is imitating life. But when I suggest that Sally Wainwright, the series creator, must have found it a sensitive subject to broach, he is genuinely baffled by the question.
“Why would it be sensitive? I don’t think that’s why she asked me to play Ted,” he says matter-of-factly. “This is his character’s arc. It’s nothing like Prue’s situation.”
West and Scales bowed out of their Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys last year after 10 series and 35 episodes that took them from the Llangollen Canal to the backwaters of Kerala. It was intended as slow television that would attract a niche audience but evolved into a cult hit, to everyone’s surprise. From the outset there was no attempt to disguise Scales’s condition.
“I found it sad that it was becoming less about canals and more about Prue’s dementia,” says West. “It was a good time to stop. We’ve got our own boat so we are carrying on without the cameras.
“The good thing is that her condition is progressing very slowly; but what is terribly upsetting is that her hearing is now affected, which makes conversation difficult.”
Although he and Scales still adore one another’s company, it’s no longer practical for her to come away with him when he works and the couple have employed a live-in carer.
“I went to see the new Stoppard play, Leopoldstadt, the other evening,” he says. “Normally I would take Prue, but I knew it would be too complex for her and she might feel frustrated, which is a shame as we both love theatre.”
West’s own theatre CV is the stuff younger actors can only dream of. After stints in rep, he joined the RSC in the Sixties and has played King Lear four times, and Macbeth and Uncle Vanya twice apiece. His stage presence is electrifying. Terrifying.
He gives a cautious welcome to the vogue for cross-gender casting in the classic repertoire. “In my view, a director needs to substantiate any decision about changing the gender of a character,” he says. “That character needs to be believable and truthful, it’s not just about playing with gender pronouns. Every generation wants to push boundaries, but taking a wrecking ball to them for no good reason is a bit senseless, especially when audiences may not be familiar with the original version. “Gender-swapped casting or setting The Tempest on Love Island for the sake of novelty won’t deepen anyone’s understanding of Shakespeare.”
Theatre may be his first love, but he has done films – The Day of the Jackal, The Thirty Nine Steps, Cry Freedom – and, for all his goodnatured grumbling, is no stranger to television. As well as his 15-month stint in Eastenders, West has appeared in Coronation Street and there have been roles in the northern “supersoap” Brass and the Lee Mack comedy Not Going Out. Whether comedy, tragedy or melodrama, the theme of family dynamics is central.
“Family is everything to me,” says West ruminatively. (He has two sons with Scales – Sam, a respected actor in his own right, and Joseph,
‘Prue’s condition is progressing slowly, but conversation is becoming more difficult’
who lives in France – and a daughter from his first marriage to actress Jacqueline Boyer.)
“In Last Tango in Halifax, even the adults – Celia’s daughter who is a head teacher, and Alan’s daughter, a farmer – regress when they go back to their parents’ home. Contentment in any relationship is about give and take and compromise, and that’s tricky to achieve.” As if on cue, Scales pops her head round the door. Birdlike and still strikingly pretty, she smiles and apologises for interrupting. By the time West invites her to join us, she has fluttered off again. The couple pursue a quiet life, but West has no plans to retire.
“When an interesting job comes along, I do get a thrill,” he says. “It gives me something to look forward to, instead of just sitting at home.” Does he pace the floor, secretly fretting?
“No. I try to be philosophical. I do occasionally become an archetypal grumpy old man – but Prue’s dementia means she forgets.”
And with a rueful chuckle, West smiles until his eyes disappear.
Last Tango in Halifax is on Sundays at 9pm on BBC One