Avril Elgar obit

Avril Elgar obituary

This article is more than 3 years old

Stage and screen actor admired for her versatility and comic timing 

She was not on the list.

In the middle of her long association with the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester, one critic opined that “any production with Avril Elgar contains a nugget of gold”. Her pedigree as an actor was apparent on television, too, notably as Yootha Joyce’s social-climbing sister, Ethel, in the popular sitcom George and Mildred (1976-79).

Short and wiry of stature, with dark, liquid eyes and definite features, Elgar, who has died aged 89, was a distinctive character actor of great resource and comic versatility.

On film, she was a raucous office cleaner – alongside Peggy Mount, Miriam Karlin and Dandy Nichols – in Ladies Who Do (1963), and a nosy neighbour in Spring and Port Wine (1970) with James Mason and Diana Coupland. On stage, she could “duke” it as Lady Bracknell at the Royal Exchange in 1993 or the Duchess of York in Michael Grandage’s superb revival of Richard III starring Kenneth Branagh at the Sheffield Crucible in 2002.

Not only was she endemic to the evolution of the Royal Exchange from its roots in the late 1950s under the directorship of Casper Wrede and Michael Elliott, she was also a key participant in the early days of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court, appearing in plays of John Osborne, Ann Jellicoe and Joe Orton.

Her father, John Williams, went to bed drunk one night and woke up the next day in the army. Her mother, Annie (nee Rose), was a loyal army wife, and Avril, the couple’s second daughter, was born in barracks in Halifax, West Yorkshire, moving on to Catterick, North Yorkshire, and Woolwich Arsenal, south London, before John was posted as an officer in the hill stations of India in the last days of the Raj.

The family returned to Britain in 1945 and settled in the West Country, where John swapped the army for teaching, and Avril’s peripatetic education settled down at Penzance county grammar school. She developed a passion for theatre and, aged 17, played Andromache – white robe, hair in a bun – in the school’s all-girl production of Euripides’ The Trojan Women (in Gilbert Murray’s translation) at the Minack open-air theatre, Porthcurno, Cornwall, in 1949, the first production in that magical location after the war.

She then won a place at the short-lived but influential Old Vic theatre school in London, which, in 1951, contained the nucleus of a group that worked together for years before finding a permanent home at the Royal Exchange. The group included Richard Negri, who designed the Exchange, the movement director Litz Pisk, and the actors Dilys Hamlett, who married Wrede (one of the Exchange’s founding directors), Avril, who married the actor, director and writer James Maxwell (later the artistic director) in 1952, Rosalind Knight who married Elliott (the guiding spirit and co-founder), and Phyllida Law, who married Eric Thompson.

When this extraordinary group left the school, they formed a small company, run on a shoestring, in the Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Avril had made a professional debut, using her middle name “Elgar” as a surname, in an Arts Council tour of Macbeth playing the second witch and Lady Macduff’s son (“He has killed me, mother”). She opened another strand in her career as a dowdy spinster daughter (“merry as a jerboa,” said Kenneth Tynan, singling her out in a cast led by Robert Stephens, Yvonne Mitchell and Wendy Craig), in Osborne’s Epitaph for George Dillon (1958) at the Royal Court and on Broadway.

In that same 1958 Court season, she played Dodo in Jellicoe’s The Sport of My Mad Mother (also with Craig) and Mrs Echo in The Hole by NF Simpson. The Old Vic school/Chorlton mob then dropped anchor briefly at the Lyric, Hammersmith, as the 59 theatre company, and Avril played Lucille Desmoulins in Georg Buechner’s Danton’s Death, directed by Wrede, with Maxwell as her doomed husband Camille. This production – with added star power from Patrick Wymark and Patrick McGoohan – was filmed by Elliott as part of the BBC’s then lively “world theatre” strand.

Back at the Royal Court in 1961, Avril featured in an Edward Albee double-bill, The Death of Bessie Smith and The American Dream, and, in 1962, a now forgotten but ironically splenetic Osborne double-bill, The Blood of the Bambergs, a send-up of a royal wedding in the wake of Princess Margaret’s to Lord (Tony) Snowdon; and Under Plain Cover, in which Jonathan Miller made his directorial debut in a sharp satire of moral hypocrisy through the exposure of incest and sadomasochism in the suburbs; Avril was a proud and grateful mother at this “alternative” wedding paid for by the press long before Hello! magazine existed.

The director William Gaskill had been her champion at the Royal Court and, when he succeeded George Devine as artistic director in 1965, she was back in Sloane Square in two not-so-successful plays by Jellicoe and Simpson, and as Lady Kix in Gaskill’s revival of Thomas Middleton’s tumultuous Jacobean comedy A Chaste Maid in Cheapside; she played Kix as a vivid schemer who cuckolds her impotent husband by bedding another and getting pregnant in order to cheat the nominated legatee of his inheritance. And in 1967 she was one of Chekhov’s Three Sisters alongside Glenda Jackson and Marianne Faithfull in Gaskill’s austere, beautiful production of Edward Bond’s adaptation.

Her last Royal Court appearance was in Edna O’Brien’s A Pagan Place (1972), with Dave Allen and Brenda Fricker. By then, 59 theatre company was the 69, at the Manchester University theatre, and she rejoined them for Peer Gynt and as Agatha in TS Eliot’s The Family Reunion, one of Elliott’s many outstanding productions.

The Royal Exchange opened triumphantly in 1976 – the most exciting theatre space in Britain. Avril and her husband remained heavily involved for its first 20 years. She was a remarkable Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, mouldy as her own wedding cake, evincing a spooky authority; a hectic Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, swinging her arms around like a rag doll’s; and a dragonish Lady Bracknell with Sam West as Algernon and Marcia Warren a perfect Miss Prism.

Her major early television work, apart from George and Mildred, came in two series in 1974: Carrie’s War, playing the timid sister of a harsh rural shopkeeper; and The Stars Look Down, Alan Plater’s adaptation of AJ Cronin’s saga set in a Geordie mining village. And she reprised an extract of Lady Bracknell in Brian Gilbert’s Wilde (1997), scripted by Julian Mitchell, with Stephen Fry as Oscar and Jude Law as Bosie.

Avril appeared sporadically at the National Theatre, notably in Mitchell’s Half Life (1977), boasting one of John Gielgud’s distinctive valedictory performances as a crusty archaeologist in his country home near Stonehenge; and in Eduardo de Filippo’s Inner Voices (1983, adapted by Simpson), with Ralph Richardson’s last stage appearance at its mystical, mesmerising centre.

She was also in Pam Gems’s Stanley (1996) with Antony Sher as the oddball painter Stanley Spencer, and an intriguing 1888 Swedish play, The Enchantment (2007); Victoria Benedictsson, its author, took her own life after a love affair with a critic, Georg Brandes.

Her last stage appearance was as the ageing, bejewelled mother-in-law, walled off in a membrane of deafness and indifference, in Andrew Hilton’s Tobacco Factory revival of Uncle Vanya for the newly refurbished Bristol Old Vic in 2009.

She moved in 2012 from Temple Fortune, north London, to a retirement village in Bristol. Her husband died in 1995. She is survived by her two sons, Adam and Dan, and by three grandchildren, Sophie, Rhoda and Virginia.

 

Actress

Doctors (2000)

Doctors

4.5

TV Series

Lady RoxburghCelia WickhamAna Kovacs

2004–2011

3 episodes

 

Alun Armstrong, James Bolam, Amanda Redman, and Dennis Waterman in New Tricks (2003)

New Tricks

8.0

TV Series

Olive Risk

2004

1 episode

 

Casualty (1986)

Casualty

6.1

TV Series

Roberta 'Bobbi' WynneMary Walend

1996–2004

2 episodes

 

Eva Birthistle, Trevor Eve, Wil Johnson, and Sue Johnston in Waking the Dead (2000)

Waking the Dead

7.9

TV Series

Tracey Durham

2003

2 episodes

 

Nick Berry in Heartbeat (1992)

Heartbeat

6.9

TV Series

Mrs. Kirkby

2002

1 episode

 

My Family (2000)

My Family

7.5

TV Series

Rebecca

2001

1 episode

 

Masterpiece (1971)

Masterpiece

8.6

TV Series

Mrs. Ford

1999

1 episode

 

Goodnight Mr Tom (1998)

Goodnight Mr Tom

7.8

TV Movie

Mrs. Ford

1998

 

Stephen Fry in Wilde (1997)

Wilde

6.9

Lady Bracknell

1997

 

Annette Badland, Neil Dudgeon, and Nick Hendrix in Midsomer Murders (1997)

Midsomer Murders

7.9

TV Series

Mary Sharpe

1997

1 episode

 

Edward Woodward in In Suspicious Circumstances (1991)

In Suspicious Circumstances

8.1

TV Series

Laura Binko (segment: The Great Romancer)Laura Binko

1996

2 episodes

 

The Bill (1984)

The Bill

6.7

TV Series

Bella ClarkeMrs. Roth

1993–1996

2 episodes

 

Brendan Coyle and Samantha Glenn in The Glass Virgin (1995)

The Glass Virgin

7.0

TV Mini Series

Alice Piecliff

1995

2 episodes

 

Jill Baker in Rides (1992)

Rides

8.1

TV Series

Pam

1993

2 episodes

 

Bookmark (1983)

Bookmark

5.5

TV Series

Lady on bus

1992

1 episode

 

David Suchet in Poirot (1989)

Poirot

8.6

TV Series

Mrs Oglander (as Avril Elga)

1989

1 episode

 

Peter Davison and Brian Glover in Campion (1989)

Campion

7.6

TV Series

Kitty Berry

1989

2 episodes

 

Roy Marsden in A Taste for Death (1988)

A Taste for Death

7.6

TV Mini Series

Emily Wharton

1988

6 episodes

 

Amanda Root in Mary Rose (1987)

Mary Rose

TV Movie

Mrs. Otery

1987

 

Screen Two (1984)

Screen Two

6.4

TV Series

Mrs. Abigail

1987

1 episode

 

The Oldest Goose in the Business

TV Movie

Daphne

1986

 

Screenplay (1986)

Screenplay

6.5

TV Series

Mrs. Bertram

1986

2 episodes

 

Peter Ustinov in Thirteen at Dinner (1985)

Thirteen at Dinner

6.2

TV Movie

Miss Carroll

1985

 

Them and Us

TV Series

Miss. Frinton

1985

1 episode

 

George Cole in Minder (1979)

Minder

7.8

TV Series

Mrs. Bickerton-Jones

1985

1 episode

 

Jason Robards in Sakharov (1984)

Sakharov

6.5

TV Movie

OVIR Administrator

1984

 

The Bank Manager's Wife (1983)

The Bank Manager's Wife

7.0

TV Movie

Dorie

1983

 

The Citadel (1983)

The Citadel

8.2

TV Mini Series

Nurse Sharp

1983

3 episodes

 

Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, and Patricia Hodge in Betrayal (1983)

Betrayal

6.9

Mrs. Banks

1983

 

Marks (1982)

Objects of Affection

7.8

TV Series

Ivy

1982

1 episode

 

Tales of the Unexpected (1979)

Tales of the Unexpected

7.6

TV Series

ThelmaNancy

1980–1982

2 episodes

 

Play for Today (1970)

Play for Today

7.8

TV Series

GraceChristine Reynolds

1970–1982

2 episodes

 

Trevor Eve in Shoestring (1979)

Shoestring

7.5

TV Series

Lois

1980

1 episode

 

Beryl Reid (1977)

Beryl Reid

TV Series

1977–1979

2 episodes

 

Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy in George & Mildred (1976)

George & Mildred

7.2

TV Series

Ethel

1976–1979

8 episodes

 

Paul Greenwood in Rosie (1977)

Rosie

7.6

TV Series

Millie Penrose

1977–1979

15 episodes

 

Don Henderson, Diane Keen, Peter Sallis, and Don Warrington in Crown Court (1972)

Crown Court

7.3

TV Series

Gudrun EwbankMrs. Hine

1974–1978

6 episodes

 

Richard Burton in The Medusa Touch (1978)

The Medusa Touch

6.9

Mrs. Pennington

1978

 

Francis Matthews and Frank Windsor in Middlemen (1977)

Middlemen

8.0

TV Series

Edna Livingstone

1977

6 episodes

 

Esther Waters (1977)

Esther Waters

7.2

TV Series

Mrs. Saunders

1977

1 episode

 

Gemma Craven and Ronald Pickup in Romance (1977)

Romance

TV Series

Lady Stoat

1977

1 episode

 

Frank Windsor in Headmaster (1977)

Headmaster

8.4

TV Series

Mrs. Mason

1977

1 episode

 

The Stars Look Down (1974)

The Stars Look Down

8.1

TV Mini Series

Martha Fenwick

1975

11 episodes

 

Under Western Eyes

TV Movie

Tekla

1975

 

Lloyd George Knew My Father

TV Movie

Maud Boothroyd

1975

 

Marked Personal (1973)

Marked Personal

7.6

TV Series

Helen

1974

2 episodes

 

Angharad Rees in Bedtime Stories (1974)

Bedtime Stories

TV Series

Colin's Mother

1974

1 episode

 

Juliet Waley in Carrie's War (1974)

Carrie's War

8.1

TV Series

Lou Evans

1974

4 episodes

 

Vanessa Redgrave, Jeremy Brett, and Annette Crosbie in A Picture of Katherine Mansfield (1973)

A Picture of Katherine Mansfield

8.6

TV Series

Constantia

1973

1 episode

 

Gayle Hunnicutt in Away from It All (1973)

Away from It All

TV Series

Daphne

1973

1 episode

 

Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Paul Scofield, and Anna Calder-Marshall in ITV Saturday Night Theatre (1969)

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

6.0

TV Series

Miss Fishlock

1973

1 episode

 

Total Eclipse

TV Movie

Isabelle Rimbaud

1973

 

John Carlisle and John Woodvine in New Scotland Yard (1972)

New Scotland Yard

7.3

TV Series

Miss Jones

1973

1 episode

 

Budgie (1971)

Budgie

7.6

TV Series

Mrs. Silverstone

1972

1 episode

 

The Befrienders (1972)

The Befrienders

TV Series

Florence

1972

1 episode

 

Alfred Burke in Public Eye (1965)

Public Eye

8.5

TV Series

Mrs Willet

1971

1 episode

 

Ros Drinkwater and Francis Matthews in Paul Temple (1969)

Paul Temple

7.0

TV Series

Mrs. Roth

1971

1 episode

 

Ryan International (1970)

Ryan International

7.0

TV Series

Madame Mouchier

1970

1 episode

 

Richard Beckinsale, Freddie Fletcher, Arthur Lowe, Jack Rosenthal, and Paula Wilcox in ITV Playhouse (1967)

ITV Playhouse

7.1

TV Series

Eudora

1970

1 episode

 

Smith (1970)

Smith

7.3

TV Mini Series

Mrs. Parkin

1970

1 episode

 

James Mason, Susan George, Rodney Bewes, Diana Coupland, Hannah Gordon, and Len Jones in Spring and Port Wine (1970)

Spring and Port Wine

7.0

Betsy-Jane Duckworth

1970

 

Detective (1964)

Detective

7.5

TV Series

Mrs. Datta

1969

1 episode

 

Edward Woodward in Callan (1967)

Callan

8.3

TV Series

Jane Ellis

1969

1 episode

 

Theatre 625 (1964)

Theatre 625

7.6

TV Series

MargaretThe Girl

1967–1968

2 episodes

 

The Gamblers

7.1

TV Series

Alice Martin

1967

1 episode

 

Z Cars (1962)

Z Cars

7.1

TV Series

Maggie Dunlop

1967

2 episodes

 

Boy Meets Girl (1967)

Boy Meets Girl

6.9

TV Series

Rita Jones

1967

1 episode

 

Anne-Marie Mallik in Alice in Wonderland (1966)

Alice in Wonderland

6.7

TV Movie

Peppercook

1966

 

Harry Worth in Harry Worth (1966)

Harry Worth

7.0

TV Series

Doreen Heritage

1966

1 episode

 

Softly Softly (1966)

Softly Softly

7.0

TV Series

Tart

1966

1 episode

 

Jack Warner in Dixon of Dock Green (1955)

Dixon of Dock Green

6.9

TV Series

Mrs. GibbonsGladys SampsonJoan Gilman

1964–1966

3 episodes

 

The Good Soldier Schweik

TV Movie

Mrs. MullerServant girl

1965

 

ITV Play of the Week (1955)

ITV Play of the Week

6.7

TV Series

Annie RobertsMiss Birdham

1963–1965

2 episodes

 

Pauline Boty and Elizabeth MacLennan in Six (1964)

Six

TV Series

Caroline Pooter

1964

1 episode

 

Joan of Arc

TV Mini Series

Joan

1964

2 episodes

 

Gideon C.I.D. (1964)

Gideon C.I.D.

8.1

TV Series

Mrs. Tennison

1964

1 episode

 

Donald Pleasence and Betsy Blair in Love Story (1963)

Love Story

7.1

TV Series

Louise

1964

1 episode

 

Earl Cameron, Lee Grant, and Fred Sadoff in The Respectful Prostitute (1964)

Festival

7.1

TV Series

Asta Allmers

1963

1 episode

 

Ladies Who Do (1963)

Ladies Who Do

6.9

Emily Parish

1963

 

Suspense (1962)

Suspense

5.9

TV Series

Mary

1963

1 episode

 

ITV Television Playhouse (1955)

ITV Television Playhouse

8.1

TV Series

Mrs. ShemongeAgatha GreensleevesMiss Jackson

1960–1963

3 episodes

 

She Always Gets Their Man (1962)

She Always Gets Their Man

6.5

Sylvia

1962

 

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

TV Mini Series

Grusha

1962

3 episodes

 

Probation Officer (1959)

Probation Officer

6.7

TV Series

Miss CharlesMaisie Brent

1960–1962

2 episodes

 

Thirty Minute Theatre

TV Series

Miss Thresher

1962

1 episode

 

Bob Dylan, David Warner, Ursula Howells, Reg Lye, and Maureen Pryor in The Madhouse on Castle Street (1963)

BBC Sunday-Night Play

8.5

TV Series

Aunt Sylvia

1962

1 episode

 

Comedy Playhouse (1961)

Comedy Playhouse

7.2

TV Series

Freda

1962

1 episode

 

Michael Denison in Boyd Q.C. (1956)

Boyd Q.C.

7.7

TV Series

Valerie Hodges

1961

1 episode

 

The Bun House Wedding

TV Movie

Nell

1961

 

They Met in a City

TV Series

Celia Livingstone

1961

1 episode

 

The Angry Gods (1961)

The Angry Gods

TV Mini Series

Electra

1961

1 episode

 

Armchair Mystery Theatre (1960)

Armchair Mystery Theatre

6.9

TV Series

Mary Hibberd

1960

1 episode

 

Inside Story

TV Series

Agnes Betts

1960

1 episode

 

Farewell, Farewell, Eugene

TV Movie

Peony Povis

1959

 

Danton's Death

TV Movie

Lucille DesmoulinsSimon's wife

1959

 

World Theatre (1959)

World Theatre

7.0

TV Mini Series

Lucille DesmoulinsSimon's wife

1959

1 episode

 

Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret in Room at the Top (1958)

Room at the Top

7.5

Miss Gilchrist

1958

 

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950)

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre

7.1

TV Series

BoletteLouiseMlle. Brun ...

1956–1958

5 episodes

 

Fair Game

TV Series

Miss Frimpton

1958

1 episode

 

Television World Theatre (1957)

Television World Theatre

TV Series

Woman of Troy

1958

1 episode

 

The Survivors

TV Movie

Lucy Dunne

1957

 

Nom-de-Plume

TV Series

Nurse

1956

1 episode

 

Self

Eamonn Andrews in This Is Your Life (1955)

This Is Your Life

6.5

TV Series

Self

1987

1 episode

 

Diana Ross in BBC Show of the Week (1965)

BBC Show of the Week

8.7

TV Series

Self

1967

1 episode

 

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

TV Mini Series

Self

1962

1 episode

 

Archive Footage

Kraft Mystery Theater (1961)

Kraft Mystery Theater

7.8

TV Series

Mary Hibberd (archive footage)

1961

1 episode