CLEAR YOUR CALENDAR
Dowager Countess Maggie Smith will be here in September.
Oh dear 6 they’ve had to move Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess. Some fiddling has occurred, I understand, about the gala in
Maggie Smith’s honour this September, in Toronto, right smack in the middle of TIFF. Though the news, when it was volleyed some weeks ago, made it official that the great Dame would be honoured at the new Four Seasons here, it’s now certain that the long-gestating flagship hotel will not be properly open until Oct. 5.
What’s a great Dame to do? Well, first, let’s hope she hasn’t caught wind at all (this being the same Dame who’s won a whole new legion of hearts for her gloriously acid turn on TV’s Downton Abbey). Second, let’s switcheroo to the Fairmont Royal York, shall we? That, indeed, is what I hear has occurred — just as well, as this does sound more like somewhere the Downton Abbey battleaxe might enjoy chillax-ing. The officious event in her name, slated for Sept. 10 — the night after another queen, Elton
John, takes centre stage here for the Fashion Cares fundraiser — is an event organized by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, which is flanking Maggie with its Legacy Award.
For four historic seasons — in that ancien régime between 1976 and 1980 — the Oscarwinning thespian wowed audiences onstage, including a turn as Cleopatra in the Bard’s classic production, as well as one of the downers in Chekov’s Three Sisters. Ingenious, then, I’ll say, of Stratford’s former artistic director, DesMcAnuff, to grab Maggie for a proper thank you — especially during a time of year that is Toronto’s starriest.
About the gala changeup, though? I can only imagine the Dowager Countess would have just the perfectly withering one-liner. This is the broad who did, after all, dryly ask, on the show, while fumbling with her first phone call, “Is this an instrument of communication — or torture?”