10:46am Monday 15th March 2010
By Ruth Meech
ARTSREACH has been given a glowing accolade from a leading actress who was one of the first performers to tour with the rural performing arts charity.
Rohan McCullough, who brings her one-woman show My Darling Clemmie to four county venues this week, has nothing but praise for the organisation that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
She said: “It is 20 years since Ian Scott [Artsreach director] brought me to Dorset and I think what they do is marvellous. I have huge admiration for Ian and his team.”
My Darling Clemmie is the perceptive and affectionate look at the relationship between Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine.
Rohan is the wife of writer High Whitemoor, who wrote the films The Gathering Storm and Into The Storm, which focus on the life of Churchill and Clemmie before, during and after the Second World War. In the two films, the actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Janet McTeer played Clementine.
She said: “There was so much material about the Churchills lying about the house and someone suggested that I do a play about Clemmie, but I wasn’t in the frame of mind to do it.
“Then it was suggested to me again and it seemed to be the right thing to do. So I went to see Lady Soames – Churchill’s daughter – to ask her permission. It was an audition of sorts and I was absolutely terrified, but she could not have been nicer.
“She gave me more letters that Winston and Clementine had written to each other over 50 years and it really helped put the show together.”
Rohan describes the Churchills as ‘an amazing couple’ and says Churchill was a remarkable man.
“He was such a poet,” she said .“You read his letters and they are just breathtaking. I imagine he was a man who was wonderful to be with – but also impossible to be with!”
And yet for all their other-worldly magnificence, the Churchills were beset by many of the same problems as the rest of us.
“Clemmie had a happy childhood, but she never knew her father and there were money troubles,” said Rohan. “All through her life she worried about money. Winston eventually earned a lot of money through his writing but for many years their house was up for sale and it was only when Winston’s friends and allies got together and bought it for them that she felt secure.
“She also worried about her children, of course; one of them died. But she always put Winston first and admitted that the children trailed behind. She served him totally and was there for him.”
My Darling Clemmie is at village halls in Shipton Gorge on Wednesday, March 17 (call 01308 897562 for tickets and details), Marnhull the following day (call 01258 820381), West Stafford on Friday, March 19 (call 01305 257266) and Melbury Osmond on Saturday, March 20 (call 01935 83410).
All performances start at 7.30pm.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/trade_directory/