Wanting The Moon

The Marlborough Theatre, Princes Street, Brighton, Friday, January 8, and Saturday, January 9

Arundel Jailhouse, Duke’s Path, off High Street, Arundel, Tuesday, January 12

HISTORY can be very cruel.

Clemence Dane won an Oscar, advised one of the country’s finest playwrights, created sculptures now kept in the National Portrait Gallery and penned controversial school-set lesbian novel Regiment Of Women 11 years prior to Radclyffe Hall’s celebrated The Well Of Loneliness.

But, 50 years on from the death of the woman born Winifred Ashton, city historian Rose Collis feels the polymath author, artist, playwright, journalist and screenwriter has been gradually written out of the public conscious.

To help increase Dane’s profile she has penned the one-woman play Wanting The Moon which she is previewing in Brighton and Arundel.

Collis plays the artist and writer herself.

“She was a tremendous friend and colleague of Noel Coward,” says Collis ahead of rehearsals with director Keith Drinkel.

“He never wrote anything without running it past her first.

“Over the years I have seen her role in his life greatly reduced by Coward’s biographers and it really annoys me. Coward is almost a presence in the play – she’s having an imaginary conversation with him.”

The 50-minute piece sees Dane debating whether to take on Coward’s offer to play Madame Arcati in his 1941 hit comedy Blithe Spirit. The character of the dotty medium who unexpectedly makes contact with the other side was inspired by Dane – not least by her use of antiquated words and phrases.

“Dane would have been perfect to play Madame Arcati,” says Collis. “She was similar to Margaret Rutherford [who eventually played the role] in that neither of them knew how funny they were.

“Both caused intense amusement to their friends and colleagues as they didn’t understand why people found certain things so funny.

“She was very witty, but she was also extremely eccentric. She was full of energy and a generous friend who loved life enormously. I hope people get a sense of that.”

Among Dane’s other close friends were Joyce Grenfell and former Hollywood neighbour David Niven – who penned a character sketch in his second volume of autobiography and stories Bring On the Empty Horses in 1975 under her real name “Winnie”.

She had connections to Sussex too – setting her 1938 Regency romance The Moon Is Feminine in the building now known as the Amsterdam Hotel, and hosting a series of unusual soirées with friends in a field just outside Midhurst.

“She had three wooden caravans overlooking the Pendean sand pits, which had hot running water and a gas-fired fridge, but no toilets,” says Collis. “They were similar to the ones used by Hollywood producers. After she died they were left to rot until someone bought them and moved them away.”

One of the attributes which attracted her to Collis was Dane’s energy.

“She was an absolute workaholic,” she says. “If she wasn’t writing she was painting, if she wasn’t painting she was sculpting, she never stopped. I’m sure she was hell to live with.

“Nothing fazed her. If something didn’t work then she moved on to the next thing. I really admire her for that.”

She earned her Oscar for co-writing the movie Perfect Strangers, which starred Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr, while the works in the National Portrait Gallery collection include a sculpture and painting of Coward and a sculpture of Richard Addinsell.

Collis was first inspired to investigate Dane when she was offered a potential book deal following the release of her 2007 biography of larger-than-life actor Coral Browne.

The proposed biography never happened, but the idea of returning to Dane appealed when Collis considered a follow-up to her 2012 Brighton Fringe one-woman cabaret Trouser-Wearing Characters – which explored the lives of strong women Nancy Spain, Colonel Barker, Dougie Byng and Coral Browne.

“I’m still touring Trouser-Wearing Characters,” says Collis, who is taking the show to libraries across the country for LGBT History Month from February.

“I wanted to do a one-woman show that wasn’t a cabaret, playing a complex character. I would like the play to have a long life.”

Director Drinkel has performed one-man shows about Dorian Gray and Laurence Olivier – and so provided a good listening ear on top of his experience.

“It’s a real artistic collaboration,” she says.

“Doing a one-person show is the Mount Everest of performing – you’re out there on your own for 50 minutes, with no-one to help you if you dry.

“On the other hand it’s satisfying and challenging – if you can pull it off there’s nothing like it.”

Starts 7.30pm, tickets £7. Call 01273 273870 (Brighton) or visit www.ticketsource.co.uk/rosecollis (Arundel).