Actor ain’t half quietly

Press, 5 March 1987, Page 11

Actor ain’t half quietly

By

KAY FORRESTER

Windsor Davies is quietly spoken. Surprisingly so for the Welsh actor whom New Zealanders first met as the bristling, belligerent sergeantmajor in television’s "It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum.” The former coalminer insists that he is nothing like the characters he plays, but he doesn’t mind being typecast as blustering and a little obnoxious. It gets him work. “If people think you of you as a certain type — producers especially — then you’re likely to get roles. So being typecast works more in your favour than anything else,” he said.

Working is what it is all about. This gravel-voiced actor with mobile eyebrows has no great aspirations to play Shakespeare.

“I’m a jobbing actor, and I enjoy what I do. If someone offers you work, you do it If the characters are a certain type ... well.” No burning desire, then, to play Hamlet?

“I think Hamlet’s a bit removed from what I’m doing at the moment ... the geriatric - Hamlet, maybe.”

Windsor Davies started in theatre late at a time when there was a swing away from the “classical actor gent” to the “angry young man.” He was 32 and married, with two children, when he swapped teaching for fulltime theatre.

He had been teaching in London after leaving Wales and the mines.

“My wife, Lynne, said I’d never be happy until I had had a go at theatre. I wrote to people and was

lucky. I started in repertory."

Some television parts followed, then “It Aint Half Hot, Mum,” "Never The Twain,” and “The New Statesman,” all of which New Zealand viewers have seen.

Windsor Davies credits his success to his in-laws and luck. His in-laws helped with free digs in London, and “luck is the licence to work hard.”

He says being Welsh helped him in the beginning because producers in the 1960 s were looking for more individual characters.

He did not attempt to iron out his Welsh accent in search of a proper "stage voice.”

The characters he plays have mostly been after laughs, but he says he is

not a funny man. “I do have a sense of humour and I think that’s more important than being funny. Actors are lucky because they have the script The scriptwriters are responsible for the laughs. We really just have to get the timing right” Timing is crucial and the script first-class in the West End play which has brought Windsor Davies to New Zealand. He stars in Ray Cooney’s “Run For

Your Wife,” still running after five years in London. “Ray Cooney has worked on the script to perfect the laughs. He’s still working on it” The part is one the actor knows well. He has had three separate threemonth stints in the West End production. He came to New Zealand because he wanted to see the country. “It’s an honour to be

asked to come.” Joining him in the New Zealand cast are three other actors from the West End production, Robin Askwith, Geoffrey Hughes and Jacki Piper. Somewhere between rehearsals and performances of the play which will have its Christchurch season from March 16 to 21 at the James Hay Theatre, Windsor Davies hopes to find enough time to indulge in a particular interest — rugby.