‘The dialogue is brutal... but the play is funny’
JEFFREY DAVIES chats to mother and daughter Caroline and Rose Quentin as the pair prepare to take on the role of mother and daughter on stage in Mrs Warren’s Profession at the Theatre Royal
WHAT is Mrs Warren’s profession? Her daughter Vivie has never really known much about her mother. A sensible young woman, Vivie has enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, a Cambridge education, a generous monthly allowance and now has ambitions to go into law.
Is it conceivable that her privilege and respectability has been financed from the profits of the world’s oldest profession? How will Vivie react when she finds out the startling truth about her mother’s business empire. And that freedom comes at an emotional price?
George Bernard Shaw’s acid test of a mother-daughter relationship is one of the Irish playwright’s wittiest and most provocative plays. Written in 1894 but banned for 30 years by a Lord Chamberlain who found it “immoral and improper”, Mrs Warren’s Profession is regarded as a ripe attack on English hypocrisy and its fashionable morality.
Set in a cottage in Haslemere, Surrey, the play centres on the madam of a string of brothels and how she tries desperately to justify her career to her daughter.
Before its West End appearance, this new Theatre Royal Bath production of Mrs Warren’s Profession takes to the stage in the West Country next week starring real-life mother and daughter Caroline Quentin and Rose Quentin, as well as Simon Shepherd and Matthew Cottle.
A riveting and unmissable production, I suggested to a most friendly Caroline Quentin, who is perhaps bestremembered by television viewers for her roles in Men Behaving Badly, Jonathan Creek and Life of Riley.
“Well, it’s not a play I knew before I started working on it. In fact I have never done a George Bernard Shaw play before. Danny [Moar] at Bath Theatre Royal suggested I do it with my daughter Rose. It’s staggeringly modern given that it was written well over 100 years ago. And it’s both very funny and intensely moving as well.
“I don’t know how you feel about it, Jeffrey, but when I go to the theatre I like to feel stimulated. I also like to learn something about a part of life that I didn’t know about as well. This really is an incredibly insightful piece of writing,” Caroline told me during a break in rehearsals.
The play is described as “an acid test of a mother-daughter relationship”, I remarked. Caroline laughed out loud at the quote I had presented her with. Especially the bit about the acid test, which had her in stitches.
“An acid test of a motherdaughter relationship!” Caroline repeated, laughing at the inference of the description.
“That sounded really funny when you said it. However, the dialogue is really very brutal in parts. In fact it is absolutely brutal. But the play is also very witty and funny as well,” said the award-winning actress, who lives in Devon.
“These are two women. A mother, Mrs Warren, and her daughter Vivie. Vivie has had the very best of everything that money can buy. A comfortable upbringing, a large monthly allowance and a first-class education at Cambridge, all paid for by the immoral earnings and profits of Mrs Warren’s profession, the oldest profession in the world, prostitution. And her daughter Vivie is not happy when she discovers what her mother’s business empire is!”
Caroline and Rose Quentin, a mother and daughter in real life. Mrs Warren and Vivie, a mother and daughter in a daring, once banned stage play. A somewhat compelling storyline. How easy, or difficult, is it for real mum Caroline to distance herself from her real daughter Rose while playing on stage together?
“Well, Jeffrey, we are still in rehearsals at the moment and I am finding it really hard and very upsetting to have to be so nasty to Vivie because she is played by my lovely daughter
Rose as you said. I have to be so unpleasant to her in my role as Mrs Warren, which is upsetting for me because off stage we have such a great mother and daughter relationship. A wonderful friendship,” said Caroline.
“We get on very well and we like each other’s company, so being nasty to her on stage is really hard for me. But as an actress, of course, and as rehearsals continue, I will obviously play the part of Mrs Warren as I am directed to because it’s a role I’ll be playing,” Caroline said matter-of-factly.
Mrs Warren’s Profession is a “ripe attack on English hypocrisy”. England does not have the monopoly on hypocrisy, I insisted. Surely this play could be set in any country and culture equally well?
“Yes, it could. There is hypocrisy everywhere as we all know. Although the play was written more than 100 years ago, it is timeless and still relevant and fitting today.”
One of our greatest comic actresses, Reigate-born Caroline has recently starred in Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National Theatre and has also appeared on our screens in the new TV series The Lazarus Project. She has twice won the British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actress and a special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards.
Caroline said she had many happy memories of working on audience favourite TV shows
like Jonathan Creek, Blue Murder, Life of Riley and Men Behaving Badly, and is still very good friends with Men Behaving Badly co-star Martin Clunes “who lives in nearby Dorset”.
Mrs Warren’s daughter Vivie in this production is played by Caroline Quentin’s real-life daughter Rose. How does Rose find rehearsing opposite her mother in this powerful and somewhat harrowing stage drama?
“I am really enjoying rehearsing with Mum. I’ve learnt such a lot from just being with her and working with her. She is such a good actor and I’m not saying that just because she’s my mum! She really is very versatile and I look forward to touring with her very much. It will be fun for us both,” a bubbly and most delightful Rose, who trained in musical theatre, told me during her lunch break.
“My character Vivie in this play has been very spoilt. She’s had the best of everything. The best that money can buy really. She’s had a monthly allowance and a first-class university education at Cambridge, but she is unaware of exactly how her mother has paid for it all. When she does find out, she is not happy to say the least!” she said, with a smile.
“Mrs Warren’s Profession is such a great play to do. When it was first performed, as you probably know, it shocked so-called decent society because of the subject matter. Although it is brutal and challenging, it is also funny and witty too. And I am very pleased to be in it.”
Having a famous and celebrated mother in the acting profession, was it inevitable that Rose would seek a life treading the boards for herself?
“I suppose it was although I was always interested in acting and singing and performing. Having a mum who was an actor encouraged me really to become one myself. But Mum never pushed me to become an actor. She never pressurised me. She just told me I could do whatever job I wanted to do. And I did,” Rose answered with a laugh.
Is Rose happy with her career choice now that she has had experience of it?
“Oh yes, I just love it. Although it is hard work it is very enjoyable as well. I am very excited about playing Bath. My Mum has performed at the Theatre Royal on a number of occasions and said what a beautiful theatre it is.”
Shortly after graduating in 2019, Rose Quentin starred in the horror film York Witches Society playing the role of Jessica. She recently toured in a new stage version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow playing the role of Katrina Van Tassel alongside former Coronation Street stars Wendi “Cilla Battersby-brown” Peters and Bill “Charlie Stubbs” Ward.
Dramatist, literary critic and socialist spokesman George Bernard Shaw was also a freethinker, a supporter of women’s rights and an advocate of equality of income. His prolific literary output also includes Pygmalion, Arms and the Man, Candida, Man and Superman, Heartbreak House and Saint Joan, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.
Mrs Warren’s Profession is playing the Theatre Royal Bath from November 9 to 19. Tickets can be booked on 01225 448844 or online at www. theatreroyal.org.uk