Memorial Service

James Hughes-onslow

Anthony Andrews, best known as Lord Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited, read a tribute from Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the great musical impresario, at a thanksgiving service for Ann Emery, tap dancer, singer and comic actress, at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. She was the younger sister of the late comedian Dick Emery – catchphrase ‘Ooh you are awful but I like you’ – and appeared in his TV series. Some say she was funnier. She starred in Elton John’s Billy Elliot the Musical for ten years, and in Cats.

‘I first got to know Ann,’ ran the tribute, ‘when she took over the role of Jennyanydots in Cats in 1983,’. ‘She lit up the stage not only because she was a phenomenal tap dancer, having coached Wayne Sleep, our original Mr Mistoffelees, but also because she radiated a unique and eccentric joy.

‘When Ann smiled and gave you one of her incredulous looks, you couldn’t help but fall about and be glad to be alive.

‘Her energy was prodigious and she was rarely ever off – a brilliant inspiration for younger, inexperienced performers to emulate. It was Ann’s work ethic that kept her so busy throughout her life, never too proud to take a smaller role if she wanted to do a particular show.

‘I was lucky enough to work with her on three more shows where she always created unforgettable characters, Martin Guerre,

My Fair Lady and, lastly, Betty Blue Eyes, where she played Mother Dear, singing an incredible tour de force called “There’s a Pig in the House” and indeed brought the house down every night.

‘Everyone who worked with Ann loved her. Her mind was as sharp as her wits and, even if she was telling you a wicked story, it was never malicious, just side-splittingly hilarious.

‘It was so fitting that Ann’s greatest and longest running stage role was also her last – Grandma in Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace, the same theatre where she made her West End debut in the Crazy Gang in 1947.’

Five young stars who played the part of Billy Elliot, Bradley Perret, Elliott Hanna, Sam Angell, Ryan Collinson and Josh Fedrick, sang ‘Goodnight Grandma’, a song written for the musical but never included in it. ‘The only time it has been sung before was at the director Stephen Daldry’s mother’s funeral,’ the vicar, the Rev Simon Grigg, told us.

A 35-strong ensemble of Billy Elliot cast veterans sang ‘Once We Were Kings’. Actress Haydn Gwynne, who played the first dance teacher in Billy Elliot, read ‘The Old Grumpy Cat’ (the part played by Ann Emery) from T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

The congregation sang the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ and listened to an exuberant address from Christopher Biggins, who said he first met Ann on the 1977 children’s TV show Rentaghost. He told how she was very ordinary in real life but suddenly came alive when required to perform. ‘She was an incredible performer – electric and amusing, she took on a new life. She could be quite outrageous. In those days I thought pretty camp meant a row of tents in a field.’ This raised a chuckle from Barbara Windsor, star of Carry on Camping, in the front pew.

‘That wasn’t really camp at all, was it?’ concluded the vicar. ‘So much love, so many glistening eyes. Let’s give Ann a standing ovation.’