The Belle of La Bête
Joanna Lumley Takes on Broadway (and Tea Partiers) in Her New Stage Role
By Angelo Pitillo
Pardon us while we gush a bit about Joanna Lumley. She's gorgeous: a leggy blonde
bombshell who got her start in the '60s as a model and Bond girl, and versatile: Lumley's racked up an impressively varied career on stage and screen, which includes work with some of the top directors and stars of our time. And of course, she's just about one of the funniest women around: In the minds of many, her name may be forever linked with that of Patsy Stone, the character she played on the long-running iconic British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. And with good reason: The hard-drinking chain-smoking venom- spewing Patsy is, in our humble opinion, one of the most hilarious comic creations of the 20th century. Lumley's also a politically-savvy activist and, to judge by our phone conversation a few days ago, a completely down-to-earth, hilariously self-deprecating sweetheart.
The occasion of our chat was her current turn in the critically-acclaimed Broadway revival of the Moliere-style social satire in verse La Bête. A raucous send-up of the struggle between high art and low comedy, between tradition and innovation, between democracy and autocracy, and ultimately between the chaotic life force and civilizing social order, La Bête also has audiences rolling in the aisles with some of the broadest physical -- and at times quite literally scatological -- humor this side of South Park. And Broadway audiences, Lumley tells us, have been responding even more vociferously than those in London's West End, where the production played to packed houses this past summer before making the skip across the pond. The reason, she believes, may lie in the striking parallels between the play's depiction of philistines breaching the barricades of high art in 16th century France and our current political climate of Tea Partiers and Mamma Grizzlies screaming to 'take the country' back from the smarty-pants elite. "The great thing is that the play seems to address so many things that are current at the moment that it's got a particular resonance for the American audiences now, particularly after this recent election" she says. "Politically it's quite difficult for me as an outsider to delve into it, but there's quite a lot of the threat of the Tea Party kind of thing you know, good being ousted by bad kind of thing, so it's kind of bringing hot coals and throwing them on the carpet."
Lumley herself is no stranger to politics. She helped Britain's Green Party elect its first-ever
member of Parliament in the recent UK election, and, as the spokesperson for the Gurkha
Justice Campaign, a rights group which succeeded in gaining the right to UK residency the
legendarily effective Nepalese soldiers, she threw a few hot coals on some powerful politicians' carpets, most famously for forcing a UK cabinet minister to accept her group's demands on live TV. "Yes, that was a sensational, sensational outcome" she says. "They're the only country who's fought for Britain who's no part of the British Empire" Lumley explains, "They've been fighting for Britain in every major conflict since about 1816 and 50,000 of them have actually died in service of our country. So it seemed the very, very least we could do to would be grant them the same privileges as commonwealth soldiers." This particular fight was no abstract cause for Lumley, who was born in India and whose father was a major in the 6th Gurkha rifles. "He served with the Gurkhas all his life. He was a career soldier, and that's why he met and married my mother in India" she says. "And I was born out in India for that very reason, and then traveled out to Hong Kong and Malaysia with my father and the regiment. So the Gurkhas were very much my family."
Lumley proved such an effective advocate for the Gurkha's cause that there have been
numerous calls for her to throw her own hat into the ring as a political candidate, a suggestion
which she deftly bats away with an airy laugh. "I've resisted quite easily" she says. "I said, 'A,
I'm terrifically lazy, and B, I'm really not qualified.' I think that if one has any kind of influence
at all, it's better used outside of politics, you know, putting pressure from outside, rather than
becoming absorbed into the machine and dragged under."
Parliament's loss, then, is theater-lovers' gain, and an early Christmas gift to TV viewers too,
since Lumley, who has already presented several documentaries on topics like the search
for the source of the Nile, returns to the genre next year with a look at Greece from its pre-
Hellenic days up to the present in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics. "I'll be covering
the ancient legends and Gods and the heroes, the great old stories" she says. "So that's going to be fabulous!" Her trademark plumy vocal tones are also much in-demand for voiceover work: If you happen to be British AOL subscriber, you'll know it as the voice which tells you, You've Got Mail, a slightly ironically bittersweet fact for Lumley. "When I did that about 25 years ago, they said, We're not even sure this system is going to catch on" she recalls. "So I was booked for a session, which is an hour long, just to say my few bits and pieces, and it was done just like that. And so to my endless shame and mean greediness, I don't have a piece of the action. Otherwise I'd be so rich I'd have sent a helicopter to pick you up for this interview."
La Bête is at the Music Box Theatre through Sunday, January 9. Showtimes and prices are
available here.
bombshell who got her start in the '60s as a model and Bond girl, and versatile: Lumley's racked up an impressively varied career on stage and screen, which includes work with some of the top directors and stars of our time. And of course, she's just about one of the funniest women around: In the minds of many, her name may be forever linked with that of Patsy Stone, the character she played on the long-running iconic British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. And with good reason: The hard-drinking chain-smoking venom- spewing Patsy is, in our humble opinion, one of the most hilarious comic creations of the 20th century. Lumley's also a politically-savvy activist and, to judge by our phone conversation a few days ago, a completely down-to-earth, hilariously self-deprecating sweetheart.
The occasion of our chat was her current turn in the critically-acclaimed Broadway revival of the Moliere-style social satire in verse La Bête. A raucous send-up of the struggle between high art and low comedy, between tradition and innovation, between democracy and autocracy, and ultimately between the chaotic life force and civilizing social order, La Bête also has audiences rolling in the aisles with some of the broadest physical -- and at times quite literally scatological -- humor this side of South Park. And Broadway audiences, Lumley tells us, have been responding even more vociferously than those in London's West End, where the production played to packed houses this past summer before making the skip across the pond. The reason, she believes, may lie in the striking parallels between the play's depiction of philistines breaching the barricades of high art in 16th century France and our current political climate of Tea Partiers and Mamma Grizzlies screaming to 'take the country' back from the smarty-pants elite. "The great thing is that the play seems to address so many things that are current at the moment that it's got a particular resonance for the American audiences now, particularly after this recent election" she says. "Politically it's quite difficult for me as an outsider to delve into it, but there's quite a lot of the threat of the Tea Party kind of thing you know, good being ousted by bad kind of thing, so it's kind of bringing hot coals and throwing them on the carpet."
Lumley herself is no stranger to politics. She helped Britain's Green Party elect its first-ever
member of Parliament in the recent UK election, and, as the spokesperson for the Gurkha
Justice Campaign, a rights group which succeeded in gaining the right to UK residency the
legendarily effective Nepalese soldiers, she threw a few hot coals on some powerful politicians' carpets, most famously for forcing a UK cabinet minister to accept her group's demands on live TV. "Yes, that was a sensational, sensational outcome" she says. "They're the only country who's fought for Britain who's no part of the British Empire" Lumley explains, "They've been fighting for Britain in every major conflict since about 1816 and 50,000 of them have actually died in service of our country. So it seemed the very, very least we could do to would be grant them the same privileges as commonwealth soldiers." This particular fight was no abstract cause for Lumley, who was born in India and whose father was a major in the 6th Gurkha rifles. "He served with the Gurkhas all his life. He was a career soldier, and that's why he met and married my mother in India" she says. "And I was born out in India for that very reason, and then traveled out to Hong Kong and Malaysia with my father and the regiment. So the Gurkhas were very much my family."
Lumley proved such an effective advocate for the Gurkha's cause that there have been
numerous calls for her to throw her own hat into the ring as a political candidate, a suggestion
which she deftly bats away with an airy laugh. "I've resisted quite easily" she says. "I said, 'A,
I'm terrifically lazy, and B, I'm really not qualified.' I think that if one has any kind of influence
at all, it's better used outside of politics, you know, putting pressure from outside, rather than
becoming absorbed into the machine and dragged under."
Parliament's loss, then, is theater-lovers' gain, and an early Christmas gift to TV viewers too,
since Lumley, who has already presented several documentaries on topics like the search
for the source of the Nile, returns to the genre next year with a look at Greece from its pre-
Hellenic days up to the present in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics. "I'll be covering
the ancient legends and Gods and the heroes, the great old stories" she says. "So that's going to be fabulous!" Her trademark plumy vocal tones are also much in-demand for voiceover work: If you happen to be British AOL subscriber, you'll know it as the voice which tells you, You've Got Mail, a slightly ironically bittersweet fact for Lumley. "When I did that about 25 years ago, they said, We're not even sure this system is going to catch on" she recalls. "So I was booked for a session, which is an hour long, just to say my few bits and pieces, and it was done just like that. And so to my endless shame and mean greediness, I don't have a piece of the action. Otherwise I'd be so rich I'd have sent a helicopter to pick you up for this interview."
La Bête is at the Music Box Theatre through Sunday, January 9. Showtimes and prices are
available here.
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