Smouldering performance: Anne Sofie
von Otter as Carmen in Glyndebourne's
2002 production. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
So, smoking is not to be banned on stage after all. A loophole has apparently been found in the new laws that will allow actors to puff away to their heart's content. Doctors may demur but this is a victory for common sense since, whatever your views on the filthy weed, smoking is integral to a large number of plays, writes Michael Billington.
The whole school of drawing-room comedy, stretching from Wilde to Maugham and Coward, depends heavily on the notion that smoking is a sign of sophistication. It may be a dated idea but it is built into the fabric of the plays. So much so that the actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier, who was famous in the 1920s as a master of comic understatement, actually lent his name to a popular brand of cigarette; as, later, did Laurence Olivier.
But this is not just a period thing. Among living playwrights, Harold Pinter has always made dramatic use of smoking. In The Homecoming there's a famous moment when the aggressively male members of a working-class household are all seen puffing contentedly on post-lunch cigars: the act becomes a symbol of their smug self-regard. And in Pinter's No Man's Land, I shall never forget the sight of John Gielgud's Spooner not only raiding his host's cigarette box but ostentatiously enjoying its contents.
If smoking is part of drama, it must also be done realistically. I find nothing more noxious than the aroma of substitute herbal cigarettes which give the impression that the characters are all 60s hippies. Actors must also learn the lost art of how to hold, light and smoke a cigarette: I've often thought it should be taught in drama schools along with fencing, fan-wielding and verse-speaking.
Smoking may damage your health, but to ban it on stage would be as absurd as outlawing sex or drink because we disapprove of their potential abuse. For once logic has prevailed over the nanny state.
