Something Thoughful

 Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him. 

                                                    MAGGIE SMITH, GONE ALAS

            Maggie Smith died a few weeks ago, aged 89. Many obituaries were duly written, most of them covering briefly her seven decades of work in stage, film and television. It’s regrettable that most younger people connect her only with her journeyman work in the children’s Harry Potter series or the period soap-opera Downton Abbey. These were the least important of her work, performed when she was old and basically playing undemanding, stereotypical characters – but she was a professional and she trooped on.

I remember her for much better things in her earlier work. The brisk, and ultimately deluded, Scottish school-teacher in the 1960s film version of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was one of Maggie Smith’s highlights. It was a very rare occasion when Hollywood for a change got it right and gave her an Academy Award for her performance. Then, years later, when she really was well on her way to old age, there was her eccentric old lady in Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van. My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing her live performance of the play in London. She was equally good in the 2015 film version of The Lady in the Van even if the film coarsened some of the original scenario.

I could quote many more of her best work, but there is one I remember for all the wrong reasons. Way back in 1965, aged fourteen I saw the film of the English National Theatre Company’s Othello. The film was really the record of a stage play. Laurence Olivier both directed and played Othello. [He played in blackface – probably the last widely-seen blackface Othello, given that blackface performances are now regarded as racist.] Am I allowed to say that I thought Olivier’s performance was over the top, verging on the ham? Desdemona, however, was played by a young and, dare I say, a buxom and very attractive Maggie Smith. I found her very convincing. But – alas – my young self was distracted near the end of the play. Othello had just strangulated and killed Desdemona and was delivering his last solemn words. But in the background I could see Maggie’s bosom still heaving up and down. This was very intriguing for a male teenager and surpassed whatever solemnity I was supposed to be attending. How foolish our young perceptions can be – but it stuck in my mind.

            Okay – I won’t give you any more nostalgia but I will express one gripe. I’ve noticed on You Tube and other platforms there is a game called something like “See Them Now” or some such, in which we are supposed to be appalled by how old film stars and celebrities have aged and no longer look as glamourous as they once did… as if we don’t all age and get wrinkles. There’s nothing wrong with getting old, so I am happy to give you images of happy Maggie Smith young and happy Maggie Smith old.