Gemma Jones returns to the screen

Press, 18 February 1980, Page 15

Gemma Jones returns to the screen

NZPA London correspondent Gemma Jones, who held viewers captive for months as “The Duchess of Duke Street,” makes a return to television this week in a John Osborne play called “Very Like a Whale” (from a line in Hamlet). ■The play, 'in which she appears as the wife of a business tycoon heaped with honours and rewards but parted from his. family and friends, is her' first TV appearance since the role that brought her international fame. She talked this week about what has happened since “The Duchess of Duke Street” run. “One very encouraging thing,” she said, “was that I had a letter out of the blue from Peter James at the Sheffield Crucible asking if I would join his company in any play of my choice. “I wasn’t used to getting that kind of invitation. We made long lists and eventually settled on ‘Cabaret’. I had always fancied myself as a singer from my school- • days when I was a little show-off. It was a rash choice but it worked.”

Later she said she played in ‘Much Ado About Nothing” which the audiences had found considerably less exciting. But she is to appear in it again in Chichester in the summer. John Osborne, said that this TV showing was the first production of “Very Like a Whale” which he wrote nearly 10 years ago. “I wrote it as a reaction to the state of the nation — and nothing has changed very much,” he said. “I wish it had . . .”