Lalita Carlton-Jones writes: In 1982 the Mermaid theatre in London staged The Portage to San Cristobal of AH, adapted as a play by Christopher Hampton from a short story by George Steiner. It posed the question of what would happen now if the elderly Adolf Hitler, played by Alec McCowen were found alive and well, living somewhere in South America.
At the time I was the theatre’s assistant manager. It had slipped my mind one day that there was a dress rehearsal: coming towards me along the dressing room corridor was Hitler dressed like a Mexican peasant with a bushy moustache. He gave me a fright and I jumped. “Oh good, it works,” said McCowen. I burst into laughter, cursed him, and heard him laughing all the way down two flights of stairs to the stage.
Geoffrey Batten writes: Michael Billington recalled Alec McCowen’s “pin-sharp performance” in the RSC’s 1962 production of The Comedy of Errors, and it can still be experienced via the black and white video of a live performance held in the RSC archives in Stratford. The cast, including Diana Rigg and Ian Richardson, were brilliantly stylish and witty, as was the incidental music, composed by Peter Wishart.
In the 1990s my wife and I saw two outstanding performances by McCowen in the RSC’s Swan Theatre in Stratford: in The Cherry Orchard alongside Penelope Wilton, and as Edward Elgar in David Pownall’s new play Elgar’s Rondo.
