The sad news of the death of Josephine Tewson has been announced. She died on 18^th August at Denville Hall, a care home for actors and other members of the entertainment industry in north London.

She was the leading lady at the Everyman rep in Cheltenham in the early sixties under Ian Mullins who was the Director of Productions. I first met her there in December 1961 when I was a lowly teenage stage-hand and she was appearing in Salad Days. The numerous parts she played in that musical demonstrated her versatility, her flair for comedy and even her singing ability. I was in awe.

Josephine Tewson was born in Hampstead, London in 1931. Her father was a musician who played in pit orchestras in the West End. She graduated from RADA in 1952 where her contemporaries were Sheila Hancock and Joan Collins. She went on to work in rep, her first job being with the Easdale Theatre Company in Darlington for £4.50 a week.

Her first West End appearance was in another Slade/Reynolds musical, Free As Air, in 1957. She had joined the company from Salisbury rep with Leonard Rossiter whom she later married. That production was also the start of a life-long friendship with fellow cast member Malcolm Farquhar who was Director of Productions at Cheltenham from 1971 to 1983.

Of course, Josephine Tewson is best known for her work in television comedy with appearances spanning four decades. Perhaps she is most fondly remembered from Keeping Up Appearances, in which she starred opposite Patricia Routledge as Elizabeth in every episode between 1990 and 1995. She was also in the later episodes of Last of the Summer Wine.

From the mid-1960s she worked almost exclusively on television with comedians such as Charlie Drake and Dick Emery – but it was Ronnie Barker with whom she is most associated. He wrote the part of Jane Travers in the 1930s set sitcom Clarence especially for her. The show’s exteriors, incidentally, were filmed in Cheltenham.

She returned to the Everyman for the last time in October 2011, along with Malcolm Farquhar, to celebrate the re-opening of the theatre after major refurbishment. We all had dinner afterwards at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant across the road in what used to be the courthouse and then we took a leisurely stroll back to her hotel. She was eighty years old but still as lively and funny as ever and kept us entertained with stories, the like of which only old actors can tell.

Josephine Tewson made a major contribution to British TV comedy as well as to theatre, the Everyman in Cheltenham in particular. She has gone but she certainly won’t be forgotten and repeats of her shows will always be shown somewhere or other.

Michael Hasted 19^th August 2022