Ann Beach
Actress BORN JUNE 7, 1938 DIED MARCH 9, 2017, AGED 78
ANN BEACH will probably be best remembered for her role as Sonia Barrett in the 1980s’ comedy Fresh Fields, with Julia McKenzie and Anton Rodgers.
However, she actually made her name with theatre director Joan Littlewood in the 1960s.
She was a member of Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop company at Stratford East, where she appeared in, among many other things, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be and Oh! What A Lovely War.
She was born in Wolverhampton to Claude, a grocer, and Rebecca.
The family went on to run an ice cream parlour in Cardiff. Beach became a member of the Snowflakes children’s choir and on attending Cardiff High School for girls, sang so well that the principal conductor of the BBC Welsh Orchestra, Rae Jenkins, felt she should become an opera singer.
However a different sort of stage beckoned and after Rada, she appeared in Hotel Paradiso, starring Frankie Howerd.
From there she joined Littlewood and divided her time between the Theatre Workshop and the Royal Court. Among her other roles was as a pregnant mistress in John Osborne’s Inadmissible Evidence.
Her musical talents were neglected, appearing occasionally in musicals, including Mame with Ginger Rogers in 1969.
But it was for smallscreen appearances that she will be best remembered. She appeared as early as 1961 in The Rag Trade, going on to clock up appearances in Oliver Twist, Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders.
She played Hugh Grant’s mother in Notting Hill and also had a stint on The Archers in 2012 as Joyce Walters. In later years she worked as a voice coach at Mountview Theatre School.
In 1966 Beach married television producer Francis Coleman, who died in 2008.
They had two daughters, both of whom became actresses: Charlotte Coleman, who died in 2001, and Lisa Coleman. She survives her as does Ann’s younger sister Hazel.