21 – 22 April
For those uninitiated in the popular culture of the 1970s Yootha Joyce is best remembered as the domineering man-mad, hen-pecking wife Mildred Roper in the TV sitcoms Man About the House and the spin off George and Mildred.
In Testament of Yootha, we get the whole story, and it could have easily been the subject of a kitchen sink Play for Today itself. Caroline Burns Cooke takes the audience on a brutal, often challenging and frenzied journey from Yootha’s theatrical birth (outside the Clapham Grand where her father was performing) through RADA to become part of the company in Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop in Stratford East.
Burns Cooke works extremely hard over the sixty minutes, following Joan Littlewood’s advice to ‘drag the audience in,’ whether that be through the high drama she played in the Harold Pinter scripted film The Pumpkin Eater right through to expletive laden tirades against the misery of having to appear in Hammer Horrors and The Benny Hill Show.
As a one woman show, it is hard to find fault with the at times frenetic pace and gurning, manic energy. It is not for the faint hearted as we hear complaints about playing a series of tarts, slags and the ‘whore on tour’ as she was so often and reluctantly type cast. She reminds us that strong female leads did not always have to look gorgeous and that the French have a phrase ‘jolie laide’ meaning a good-looking ugly woman. As she says, she was sexy, but it wasn’t done on purpose. And Yootha certainly understood her limits while making the most of them.
From the moment that she enters, an almost sarcastic look of suggestive sexuality painted on her face while tripping through the song ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’ the audience is emotionally hijacked. Both Burns Cooke’s and Yootha’s relationship with the audience is a tricky one. We are in turn enthralled and appalled by her caustic wit and nagging insecurity and often directly addressed across the third wall.
When TV success arrives, it is welcomed but also feared. The stress of working in front of a live audience, the pressure to repeat the same performance in series after series and the awkward interaction with fans all took their toll and Yootha became on one level a functioning alcoholic and on another an accident waiting to happen.
As she says, she sought to ‘put a bit of glamour in the arse end of the 1970’s’. Ultimately, we learn that she died prematurely at only 53, but we recognise that she did burn brightly during her time.
Burns Cooke delivers a fine testament for Yootha, armed with no more than a bare stage and ever so slight costume changes. Direction by Mark Farrelly is well handled and if you know nothing about the 1970’s you will learn plenty from seeing this show. And if you do remember it, you can rest assured that it was as gloriously tacky as you thought it was.
★★★★☆ Bryan J Mason 22nd April
