Rebekah Pickering-Wood Interview: Great Expectations, actors Brian Glover and Nyree Dawn-Porter.
Title
Rebekah Pickering-Wood Interview: Great Expectations, actors Brian Glover and Nyree Dawn-Porter.
Date
21 November 2018
Description
Oral history interview with Rebekah Pickering-Wood about her childhood experiences of performing at the Theatre Royal in Great Expectations in 1994 and A Christmas Carol in 1995.
What's the story?
Born in Nottingham in 1983, Rebekah Pickering-Wood performed as a child in two Christmas shows, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol at the Theatre Royal in 1994 and 1995. These two Dickens stage adaptations replaced the traditional Pantomime for two seasons.
From the audition process to performing on stage, Rebekah provides a vivid account of this period in her life, as well as an insight into the life of the theatre.
Rebekah reminisces about actors Brian Glover (Magwitch) and Nyree Dawn-Porter (Miss Havisham) both in Great Expectations.
And then there was Brian Glover. Now obviously at the time I had no idea who Brian Glover was from Tetley Tea and Porridge and things like that. Now I know who he is, but at the time he was just a nice bald old man, who was quite friendly to us. And the thing was, he was hilarious and he would spend lots of time with the children, making jokes and getting us under his arm and chasing us. And because he was playing the character of Magwitch, who was obviously a convict, his role was very menacing and I think what he was trying to do was make it clear to us that the role that he was playing was a part and that he wasn’t like that in real life and he didn’t want us to be frightened of his character because there are parts in the show where actually his character can be seen as quite menacing and he really wanted to make sure that we weren’t afraid of him and we would act properly around him and that was really lovely. And I just have warm memories of spending time with him.
And then Nyree Dawn-Porter, who played Miss Havisham, she was always a bit hard to approach because she was so…. I don’t actually remember ever seeing her not in costume. I must have done at some point. But she had this beautiful, obviously decaying, wedding dress that she was wearing as the part of Miss Havisham, which she only had the one costume because she wore it all the time. But she was like a ghost, walking through the corridors in this sad, decaying, bridal dress and if you bumped into her in the corridor, she would be quite heavily made up, because obviously they needed to make her look quite dramatic on stage. So her make-up was heavier than everybody else’s. Very creased with lots of grey and crow’s feet on her face and things like that. And so I’ll be honest, I think I tried to run away from her a couple of times because she was a little bit frightening, but the performance on stage was magnificent. She was absolutely wonderful.
From the audition process to performing on stage, Rebekah provides a vivid account of this period in her life, as well as an insight into the life of the theatre.
Rebekah reminisces about actors Brian Glover (Magwitch) and Nyree Dawn-Porter (Miss Havisham) both in Great Expectations.
And then there was Brian Glover. Now obviously at the time I had no idea who Brian Glover was from Tetley Tea and Porridge and things like that. Now I know who he is, but at the time he was just a nice bald old man, who was quite friendly to us. And the thing was, he was hilarious and he would spend lots of time with the children, making jokes and getting us under his arm and chasing us. And because he was playing the character of Magwitch, who was obviously a convict, his role was very menacing and I think what he was trying to do was make it clear to us that the role that he was playing was a part and that he wasn’t like that in real life and he didn’t want us to be frightened of his character because there are parts in the show where actually his character can be seen as quite menacing and he really wanted to make sure that we weren’t afraid of him and we would act properly around him and that was really lovely. And I just have warm memories of spending time with him.
And then Nyree Dawn-Porter, who played Miss Havisham, she was always a bit hard to approach because she was so…. I don’t actually remember ever seeing her not in costume. I must have done at some point. But she had this beautiful, obviously decaying, wedding dress that she was wearing as the part of Miss Havisham, which she only had the one costume because she wore it all the time. But she was like a ghost, walking through the corridors in this sad, decaying, bridal dress and if you bumped into her in the corridor, she would be quite heavily made up, because obviously they needed to make her look quite dramatic on stage. So her make-up was heavier than everybody else’s. Very creased with lots of grey and crow’s feet on her face and things like that. And so I’ll be honest, I think I tried to run away from her a couple of times because she was a little bit frightening, but the performance on stage was magnificent. She was absolutely wonderful.
Type
Oral Interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers Sally Smith and Phil Smith
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
