And That's Not All : The Memoirs of Joan Plowright

By Joan Plowright

Book Overview

Joan Plowright, fresh from making a new film with Peter O'Toole, has, after years of saying no, finally written her memoirs. She's had quite a life, not least having been married for twenty years to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0752848402
• ISBN13: 9780752848402
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Orion Paperbacks
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 1.1" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

A pity it's all. . .

I could have gone on reading And That's Not All...without wearying. Perhaps my delight in these memoirs stems in part from my shared history with Plowright, an exact contemporary and fellow Brit whose roles in theatre coincide with many of my own, but that parallel apart these stories of England's greats, actors and directors and managers and politicians (politics rears its hydra-head always in theatre-management) are fascinating and shrewdly recounted. The empathy and wit which imbues the descriptions leave me in love with the narrating voice as I was formerly in love with the actor herself; Sir Laurence appears in all his estimable and many-faceted greatness, warts and all, and his battles with Sir Peter Hall and others are recorded with scrupulous fairness and a remarkable lack of resentment; the charms of the talented children emerge from correspondence (for, as the author wryly remarks, letters fron guests and visitors compliment her family in ways modesty forbade her from using herself.) The letters and her journal offer remarkable insights into the many friends and fellow-thespians who cherished their relationships with the famous couple, and letters from Vivien Leigh serve also to demonstrate an equally remarkable equanimity and grace. The reader cannot but marvel at the kindness and goodwill of the theatre community at large and most importantly of the author herself. Such gentle and kind behaviour honours the profession and provides a fitting testament to the practitioners themselves.If there is a shortcoming at all in the construction of the memoirs, it derives from the grasshopper treatment of time. This account is not for readers who require everything to fall into linear progression; there is a logic in the structuring of the memoirs which is always evinced but which sometimes disappears again into a miasma of personal connections. The index, offering a chronological survey of the author's stage and film roles, helps in clarifying the order of events, as does the veritable feast of interleaved photographs. Personally, I love the creative way Plowright explores and renews her memories, and find myself finally echoing an insight she gives of herself in the chapter devoted to Larry's funeral. As the guests sat together in his beloved garden at Malthouse after the packed church service, two aircraft were quite concidentally performing manoeuvres overhead, and their vapour trails formed a clear cross above the house. When this was pointed out to her, Joan looked up and said, "I believe in such signs."One of Olivier's last accomplishments had been a televised performance of King Lear for Granada T.V. in 1983. At the funeral six years later, Anthony Hopkins poured all his love for his friend and mentor into reciting the final lines of this great play, and these are the lines that to me fittingly commemorate the achievement of his widow in these haunting memoirs:. . .The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not wha