Sarah Crompton

In praise of understudies

Their importance has been elevated to new heights in the age of the pandemic

This is not All About Eve where an ambitious understudy plans to overthrow her heroine: Eve (Anne Baxter) and Margo (Bette Davis) in a showdown from Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1950 film. Credit: PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy Stock Photo 
issue 08 January 2022

The actor Ronald Fraser was famous for two things: his comic timing and his liking for a drink. On one occasion in the 1960s, he was happily sitting three sheets to the wind in a local hostelry, when he remembered that he was supposed to be on stage at a matinee.

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