Leonard Rossiter

Theatre Performances: 1960s

A complete guide to the theatre performances of
Leonard Rossiter in the 1960s. All dates are first performance dates.

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A Taste Of Honey
February 1960
Written by Shelagh Delaney
Directed by John Hale
Performed at the Old Vic Company, Theatre Royal, Bristol.

Jo, the teenage heroine who lives in a filthy tenement bedsitter, is deserted by her nagging peroxided mother, who is unaware that her daughter is pregnant by a black sailor. Jo's greatest fear is that her illegitimate baby might be mentally deficient like her own father. To soothe, clean and cook for her is Geoff, an effeminate art student, with whom she makes a temporary home. Bruised by insensitivity and rejection, the boy and girl find a very real comfort in each other. Pictured is Joan Haythorne.

Leonard played the role of Peter, the mother's boyfriend.
 
 

The story of the life of Mary, Queen Of Scots.

Leonard played the role of Lord Burleigh.

Leonard played the role of Griff, a writer of begging letters.

Notes:
Director Prunella Scales was also an actress at this time, and later went on to fame as Basil Fawlty's wife Cybil in 'Fawlty Towers'. She starred alongside Leonard later, in 1980, in Make and Break.

Picture: Leonard with Ewan Hooper.

Mr Hardcastle and Sir Charles Marlow have arranged a match between Miss Kate Hardcastle and young Marlow. The fun arises when Marlow is directed to the Hardcastles' house rather than a neighbouring inn, and mistakes Hardcastle for the landlord and Kate for one of the servants.

Leonard played the role of Tony Lumpkin.

Critical Reviews:
"Mr. Jones is fortunate in having leonard Rossiter whose bucolic Lumpkin is outrageously overplayed. Mr. Rossiter, a natural clown, could eat this part before breakfast, and indeed he makes a meal of it. As far as this vital character is concerned, all is well." - Tom Stoppard, Bristol Evening World.
"Watch his gestures and grimaces as he plans yet another preposterous practical joke. The actor's gift for broad comedy has seldom been better invoked." - John Coe, Bristol Evening Post.

Picture: With Leonard is Viola Lyel.

The play is about a young Cockney soldier who is taken as a hostage for an IRA man who is due to be hanged in Belfast. His captors are obsessed with memories of 1916 and dreams of Irish freedom. His companions in the disreputable lodging house where he is held prisoner are a cross-section of Dublin derelicts. As well as being a profound comment on Anglo-Irish relations and the Irish themselves, it is also full of comedy.

Leonard played the role of Pat, the lodging-house keeper.

Critical Reviews:
"The Hostage is a sprawling, uninhibited, rip-roaring, boozy shambles of a play, punctuated with songs and dances. The part of the lodging house keeper suited Leonard perfectly and he acted with tremendous comic verve, dominating the production and holding the play together. It was a role, he said, to which he would like to return." - Robert Tanitch.
"Leonard Rossiter, as the caretaker, gives another example of his electrified comedy." - Peter Rodford, Western Daily Express.

Picture: Leonard is pictured with June Watts and Barry Foster.

The Shakespearean tale of mix-ups between long-separated twins and their twin slaves.

Leonard played the role of Dromio of Syracuse.

Critical Review:
"I should add an extra bouquet for Leonard Rossiter, whose expressions and faster-than-machinegun staccato of lines delivered are superbly accomplished." - G.M.H., Bristol Evening Post.

PIcture: Leonard is shown with his co-stars Richard Gale and Maggie Jones.
 
 

The classic tale of love found and lost among two wealthy families.

Leonard played the role of Friar Lawrence.

Links:
 Official Baalbek Festival web site

An avant-garde play about a community who all eventually turn into rhinoceros.

Leonard played the role of The Logician

Links:
 Rhinoceros play web site

The Shakespearean love story-turned-thriller featuring Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda.

Leonard played the role of Stephano, the drunken butler.

The classic love story between the Emperor of Rome and the Queen of the Nile.

Leonard played the role of Rufio.

A farce about the strange habits and hobbies of the Groomkirby family.

Leonard played the role of Arthur Groomkirby.

The classic Christmas pantomime about Dick and his faithful cat and their adventures in London.

Leonard played the role of Cicely Suett.

A play about self-discovery. A young woman, Beatie Bryant, from a farm labourer family, falls in love with the heir to a successful soup company.

Leonard played the role of Mr. Bryant.

Tensions between Indians and the colonial British come to a boil when a white female tourist accuses a young Indian doctor of rape during a visit to caverns. A study of colonial relations and the nature of memory.

Leonard played the role of Richard Fielding, principal of the college.

Critical Review:
"A sympathetic strong performance from Leonard Rossiter added character to the slightly colourless role of Mr. Fielding." - Jeremy Brien, Western Daily Express.

Picture: Leonard with Jeremy Spenser.

The story of the fall of Richard II and the ascendancy of Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford.

Leonard played the role of Henry Bolingbroke.

Critical Review:
"Leonard Rossiter makes Bolingbroke suitably foul-mouthed at the start, but is not so happy when the usurper takes on more subtle shades when he returns from banishment." - Jeremy Brien, Western Daily Express.

Picture: Leonard with Richard Gale.

Avant-garde detective story.

Leonard played the roles of Architect and Second Policeman.

The story of the life, death and martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, the Lord chancellor who resigned in opposition to King Henry VIII's break with the Roman Church.

Leonard played the role of The Common Man

Critical Review:
"The Common Man, who acts as Chorus to this theatrical history, is played with singular finesse by Leonard Rossiter (the perfect Shakespearean droll)." - Peter Rodford, Western Daily Express.
 
 

Leonard played the role of Celestino.

Leonard played the role of Harry Hopkins
 

Into his derelict household shrine Aston brings Davies, a tramp (Rossiter) - but a tramp with pretensions, even if to the world he may be a a pathetic old creature. All that is left of his past now is the existence in Sidcup of some papers, papers that will prove exactly who he is and enable him to start again. Aston, too, has his dreams: he has always been good with his hands and there is so much to do in the house. Aston's hopes are tied to his flash brother Mick's; he has aspirations to live in a luxurious apartment.

Leonard played the role of Davies, the tramp.

Critical Review:
"The centrepiece is always the tramp and Leonard Rossiter plays him with humour and compassion. This is a true picture of the familiar drifter; stupid, idle, yet not without his streak of human dignity - and pomposity. One recoils from the sight of him; yet one can feel sorry, too." - E.W.A., Surrey Advertiser.

Notes:
Leonard was to resume this role in 1972.

A Restoration Comedy with a heart and soul. Captain Plume (Edgar Wreford) arrives in Shrewsbury to recruit new soldiers. He falls for Sylvia (Vivienne Martin) - against her father's wishes. Rather than be sent away, Sylvia disguises herself as a man and so learns more about Plume than he would really like ... This play is based on Farquhar's real-life experiences.

Leonard played the role of Sergeant Kite.

Critical Review:
"His performance is a remarkable exercise in swift, controlled fun. In a part which any sucker could make into a pseudo- Hancock parody, he never confuses expression with grimacing, or lifts his voice into contemporary fun-machine-gabbery." - Gareth Lloyd-Evans, The Guardian.

Picture: Leonard with Edgar Wreford and Vivienne Martin.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, Semi-Detached has a special section on this web site.

Shaw's first publicly-performed play is a satire on war and on the professional fighting man.

Leonard played the role of Sergius Saranoff.

An Irish propagandist play, set during the Dublin Transport Workers' strike of 1913.

Leonard played the role of Brennan o' the Moor, the landlord.

Critical Reviews:
"The evening's acting honours go to Leonard Rossiter as a Fagin-like Irish derelict." - Herbert Kretzmer, Daily Express.
"Whiskered, astrakhan-collared and black-mittened, he shuffled and snuffled his way into the skin of the character that ranks with the great laughter-makers of the theatre." - Colin Frame, Evening News.

Picture: Leonard with Donal Donnelly and Pauline Delaney.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, Semi-Detached has a special section on this web site.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, Semi-Detached has a special section on this web site.

Hamp (Hurt) crawls out of a shell-hole at Passchendale during World War I and walks away from the battle. He is court-martialled for desertion in the face of the enemy. Many people try to make him realise that the court could insist on the maximum penalty. Obtusely, Hamp has utter faith in his counsel's power of words and believes that everybody is too busy with the war to trouble about his insignificant crime. But it is decreed: Hamp has to meet a death as unceremonious as the Army can make it.

Leonard played Lieutenant Tom Webb.

Leonard's Role Remembered:
"The director...decided to build the stage up, thus increasing the rake six or even times...The result was that the actors would enter from the wings...turn to face the audience, hurtle downhill to the footlights, brake sharply and then turn to trudge up the slope in second gear. The sight of Leonard's face registering mock-exhaustion as he trudged upstage...is something I shall treasure always. Ever after, the play was affectionately known as Ramp." - Richard Briers, co-star.

Picture: Richard Briers, Malcolm Tierney, Tom Watson and John Hurt as the deserter.
 

Oswald Alving (Barry Warren) has returned home to visit his mother on one of the occasional visits he has made since leaving home as a young boy. He was sent away to prevent him from becoming morally contaminated by his father, Captain Alving, who subsequently died of syphilis. This time, however, he intends to stay and marry the maid, Regine; he is unaware that Regine is his half-sister, sired by the profligate Captain Alving. Pastor Manders (Rossiter), the mother's former lover, also visits and reprimands Mrs. Alving for not living a more conventional life and rearing her son.

Leonard played the role of Pastor Manders.

Leonard's Role Remembered:
"As always Len brought something original to the flavour of the man who at one time might have wished to marry Mrs. Alving before the world of self-indulgence got hold of him. Len was meticulous about his insurance papers as props and told me of his experiences in the insurance business before becoming an actor. He had to have those papers for the Alving memorial to be exactly right and, without a word, he manufactured the most authentic-looking documents for his scene." - Adrian Rendle, director.
"Len tended to make all his parts an aspect of himself. He was never invisible. Leonard Rossiter was always there. I could see bits of Manders in Rigsby..." - Barry Warren, co-star.

Picture: Leonard with Catherine Lacey and Barry Warren.

Volpone is a Venetian aristocrat, a lovable rogue who enjoys the cunning pursuit of his wealth more than the money itself. Pretending to be mortally ill, he watches as his greedy neighbours swarm around him with expensive gifts in an attempt to inherit his fortune.

Leonard played the role of Corvino.

Leonard's Role Remembered:
"Leonard's Corvino was, in my opinion, definitive: it was paranoic jealousy personified, a superb performance which I never tired of watching and enjoying; it was a rare experience, an amalgam of delight and immense satisfaction, to share the stage. Off-stage, I thought him wonderfully fortunate in his lady, prickly, unpredictable, companionable and splendidly entertaining, difficult, a worrier, cynical (about certain things), passionate, insecure: a multi-faceted gem of an actor who adorned every production lucky enough to have him." - Leo McKern.

Critical Reviews:
"Leonard Rossiter alternates quiet wheedling with pent-up violence in a really inspired performance." - Felix Barker, Evening News.
"..But perhaps the most original single performance of the evening is given by Leonard Rossiter, who turns Corvino into a simpering, abject and profoundly ridiculous creature. Few actors can have applied such comic resourcefulness to so small a part; and the result is a virtuoso performance." - The Times.
"...It is certainly the most various, the funniest and the most technically ambitious performance in the production; a pity it isn't anything more." - Benedict Nightingale, Plays and Players.

Notes: Leonard resumed this role four months later at The Garrick Theatre, London

Picture: Leonard with Maureen O'Brien.

A sardonic comedy of manners and honour. A bourgeois husband, Leone Gala (Rossiter), has to fight to keep his wife Sylvia Gala (Judi Dench) from being stolen away by her lover.

Leonard played the role of Leone Gala.

Leonard's Role Remembered:
"I was overwhelmed by his technique and brilliance in the part." - Judi Dench, co-star (pictured).

Critical Review:
"Mr. Rossiter, breathing the calm, mannered confidence of the compulsive melancholic, handles her with the self-amused fatalism of a bomb-disposal expert." - Don Chapman, Oxford Mail.

Notes: Leonard returned to this role in 1982.

Volpone is a Venetian aristocrat, a lovable rogue who enjoys the cunning pursuit of his wealth more than the money itself. Pretending to be mortally ill, he watches as his greedy neighbours swarm around him with expensive gifts in an attempt to inherit his fortune.

Leonard played the role of Corvino.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui has a special section on this web site.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui has a special section on this web site.

A political parable on Nazism and German authoritarianism. Martin Richter (Rossiter), a butler, initiates a 'servants rebellion', leading to the act of putting his master (Tony Steadman, pictured) into a cage.

Leonard played the role of Martin Richter

Critical Reviews:
"When he smiles, his mouth is like a shark's. His hands twist like a jailor locking a cell door. His voice chokes back a tide of hysteria and his gestures punctuate the rhetoric like karate chops." - Peter Lewis, Daily Mail.
"Stanley Eveling writes with assurance and panache. Leonard Rossiter, manipulating every nuance of megalomania with masterly shifts from the comic to the sinister, gives the role of Richter an enigmatic, ambiguous but always compulsive fascination." - Milton Shulman, Evening Standard.
"Leonard Rossiter, whose attributes apparently include the enviable ability to walk effortlessly with his body arched back at an angle of forty-five degrees, solves the problems of playing an outsize character by going out and creating a world of his own, and daring the rest of the play to match up to it." - Robert Cushman, Plays and Players.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui has a special section on this web site.

One of Leonard's great theatre performances, The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui has a special section on this web site.

Move on to Theatre: 1970s-80s
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Text (c) Paul Fisher 2004
Pictures (c) their respective owners.