Edith Evans

And the casting for these plays is where the true weight of his reputation really becomes apparent.

Waters of the Moon featured Edith Evans and Sybil Thorndike.

Legends.

Total legends.

They must now return to their daily routine of eating toasted tea cakes but with a newly sharpened acute awareness of their own despair.

It is a devastating emotional mechanic.

You can entirely understand why actresses of the caliber of Edith Evans and Sybil Thorndike were drawn to this.

The technical challenge for the actor is immense.

While

being dressed like Dame Edith Evans for some reason, like there are times I'm like, what is this outfit? Yeah.

He has a whole cutout with jewels on his chest.

I don't know what like he looks like a Victorian aunt who is like trying to who is like, I really want to marry him.

[laughs]

Edith Evans and-

Yeah

... and, and I played that obligatory villain.

I mean, absolutely, of all the falsities, that's the one you don't want, isn't it?

Nothing funnier than Piers Morgan in full, like, pearl-clutching dance of Edith Evans, kind of, never in my life have I been so disgusted.

I really enjoyed watching his segment on it.

It is quite extraordinary.

Binkie Beaumont, 1950s, all that glamour gone.

All of that had c- sort of gone, faded away anyway, but the National Theatre was this strutting group of fantastic actors, many of them young, some of them among the greatest actors of our time, Edith Evans, Michael Redgrave, and so on, and Olivier himself at the center of it all.

And it was a dream, a centuries-old dream of creating a National Theatre and all that.

And I, so I went there v- uh, very often, and one day, I just had this sort of revelation.