Patricia Routledge
Donal O’Donoghue talks to the legendary actress, as she heads for the Dublin stage with her one-woman show
“Ihave Irish blood in me,” says Patricia Routledge towards the end of a joyful conversation that covers an eventful life on stage and screen. In her 90th year, the much garlanded actress, who had roles written for her by Alan Bennett and was made a Dame last year, is probably best known for two iconic TV roles, Hyacinth Bucket and Hetty Wainthropp. But there is also a lifetime in musical theatre as well as charity work from this all-round good egg. “My grandmother, Catherine, was from Galway and I give thanks for that legacy,” she says. “We adored her when we were growing up. She used to tell my brother and I wonderful stories about a couple called Pat and Mick.”
No airs or graces, the voice is instantly recognisable, as it chirrups down the phone line: “Hello there, it’s Patricia here!” Conjuring up Hyacinth and Hetty, it is also so fresh that it belies the speaker’s years. “So Patricia,” I begin, “what is your secret that you’re still going at one million miles an hour?” “Oh I’m not,” she counters with a chuckle, before telling of a hectic week of Armistice ceremonies that argues the opposite. “I was patron of the whole caboodle,” she says of the events that centred round the life and work of the war poet Wilfred Owen, who lived for seven years in her own stamping ground of Birkenhead, across the Mersey from Liverpool. Routledge grew up in the suburb of Tranmere, a happy childhood with her father, Isaac, a haberdasher and her inspirational mother, Catherine, guiding her and her brother. “I was just thinking about my mother this morning as I started to worry about some work I have to do. A voice just came into my head saying ‘Su cient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ In other words, just keep to the present and don’t be anxious about things in the future. My mother was practical, she was imaginative, she was positive and she was always encouraging to my brother and me. She wanted us to nd out what we could do and to do it with all our might and to enjoy it.” A life-long love of the written word (she studied English at Liverpool University) has informed Routledge’s career on stage and screen. “My brother and I learned to read before going to school,” she says. “I can hear again my mother’s voice reading us fairy stories and then when we learned to read we learned to enjoy composition, making up little stories. Later I would learn the power of the spoken word when we were given great chunks of poetry and prose to learn at school. It was a great blessing. It horri es me to go into posh homes and nd that there isn’t a book on the wall. I can’t believe it but it’s the terrible ‘watching society’ now, isn’t it?” For a long time, she has only invested in projects that she believes in (“Do I want to burn up my energy on this?”). Admission: One Shilling, which comes to Dún Laoghaire in December, ts squarely into that bracket: a piece of musical theatre (with pianist Piers Lane) that tells the story of Myra Hess, the great international pianist who played 1600 concerts, many in blitzed London, during the Second World War and beyond. “I saw Myra myself as a schoolgirl at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on a Saturday a ernoon,” she says. “I can still see her now, not only her great gi s, but someone who was always in the service of the music. ere was no showing o . I don’t impersonate her; I read from letters, reported interviews and so on.”
As soon as Routledge read the pilot script for Keeping Up Appearances,
I’m fortunate enough to be able to live comfortably and one should share one’s good fortune with people who are less fortunate
she recognised the potential of the leading lady, Hyacinth Bucket (‘It’s Bouquet!’), an incorrigible snob with notions. “The character just leapt from the page,” she says of the woman she fondly calls “the Dreadful Mrs B.” “I thought to myself, ‘I know this woman and I think I can knit her up.’” Clive Swift played Bucket’s long-suffering husband. “They were the most perfect couple,” she says. “You look at this pair and know why they are married to each other. He loved to be dominated, his shirts were always ironed, his meals were always on the table.”
Routledge’s other great TV role is that of the title character in the BBC series, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. “I LOVED Hetty, who was a complete contrast to Hyacinth,” she says. “I also knew her, having grown up in the north of England. I knew those wonderful ladies at the bus stops in their fussy hats, practical, down-to-earth and no-nonsense characters.” The series was axed unceremoniously by the BBC in 1998, something that still rankles with Routledge. “We were invited to do a fifth season but the BBC didn’t have the courtesy to tell us that they weren’t doing any more. Some replacement person called in our wonderful producer and said ‘Would you please tell Miss Routledge?’ And she said. ‘No, I won’t tell Miss Routledge! You tell her yourself.’”
Patricia doesn’t watch herself on TV any more. “I only watched when the shows were being made so that I could see what I was perpetrating,” she says. But she does have the box sets and is thrilled that Keeping Up Appearances is still being shown around the world. And the fan mail still arrives, which she and her agent do their best to answer. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as a standard fan letter,” she says. “I got one from a lady who told me that her husband had died six months previously. She had just got back from the hospital with the bad news, turned on the television and as she said, ‘ There you were!’ and that helped her. That was very touching. To lift people’s spirits makes it all worthwhile.”
Routledge was made a Dame last year. ‘Not before time’ was the cry of many, not least the man who gave her the gong, Prince Charles (she was awarded an OBE in 1993 and a CBE in 2004). “I’m still trying to get used to it when people call me Dame Patricia,” she says. She keeps her medal in a drawer, while her other awards including a Tony (from 1968 for Darling of the Day) and Olivier (from 1988 for Candide) have pride of place on a shelf on her study. “I’m not one of those horrors who say things like ‘My mother uses it as a doorstop!’” she says. “Those awards mean a very great deal to me. To go to Broadway and win a Tony Award for a musical, I can’t think of anything more exciting!”
Her damehood was for services to charity as well as theatre. “I’m fortunate enough to be able to live comfortably and one should share one’s good fortune with people who are less fortunate,” she says simply. Next February, Patricia celebrates her 90th birthday, so I ask her if there are any unfulfilled ambitions? She laughs. “Just to keep healthy,” she says. “I’m very lucky when I look around and see my friends who are not well. That is sad but I do have wonderful memories. I remember a dear old lady who told me when I was a schoolgirl, ‘God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.’ That line keeps coming back to me.”
Admission: One Shilling with Patricia Routledge and Piers Lane is at the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire on December 5 at 8pm. paviliontheatre.ie