Michael Arditti

From ‘little Cockney’ to playing Queen Mary: the remarkable career of Eileen Atkins

The actress painfully charts the indignities of her early life and the snobbery she endured before being finally accepted in the theatre

Eileen Atkins has survived seemingly insuperable odds to reach the pinnacle of her profession. [© Sandra Lousada/Mary Evans picture library]
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  • Will She Do? Act One of a Life on Stage

    Eileen Atkins

    Virago, pp. 320, £18

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