Stephen Thorne kindly gave me an interview for my forthcoming biography of the radio producer Reggie (RD) Smith.
Reggie had cast Thorne as a messenger in Antony and Cleopatra, with Peggy Ashcroft, and BBC Two television had chosen to feature it in its documentary series Great Acting. The cameras recorded a rehearsal in which Reggie gave an unusually extravagant performance on the studio floor peppered with lavish “darlings”.
The scene was a two-hander between Cleopatra and the messenger. On radio, Stephen’s height was no problem, but he was now asked to play the scene kneeling so that the camera could include him and Ashcroft in the same frame. Horrified to see himself on his knees in a radio studio, he was convinced that it must have looked “completely preposterous”.
