Embracing life and love at every stage (From The Argus)

Embracing life and love at every stage

11:48am Wednesday 25th July 2012 in Interview By Nione Meakin

Jenny Seagrove is –
naturally – en route
to the theatre when
I catch her.
She’s appearing as Adela
Shelly in her partner Bill
Kenwright’s production of
Noel Coward’s Volcano.
The couple chose it together
and while Seagrove doesn’t
think it’s Coward’s best
work, it’s good – thoughtprovoking
and funny.
But the play, she explains,
is just one of many plates
she’s currently spinning.
She recently added to her
portfolio of charity work
by taking over a horse
refuge in Kent, not something
she’d intended to do but
after a desperate plea from
an old friend with a stable
of hungry horses, she was
left with little choice. She’s
stopping off there before
tonight’s performance.
Then there are the three
films she hopes to produce,
including one about
journalists covering the
war in Afghanistan and
an adaptation of Jim
Cartwright’s “funny, quirky,
wonderful” play Two, which
Manchester’s Royal Exchange
put on earlier this year.
“Someone said it was
better to be a burnt-out
cinder when you die than to
regret what you haven’t done.
I intend to be a thoroughly
burnt-out piece of ash!”
At 55, the actress who
shot to fame in 1980s TV
mini-series A Woman Of
Substance and was one of
the chief appeals of the
BBC’s long-running Judge
John Deed, is enjoying
something of a golden
period. She’s busy, more
confident in herself and
in a relationship she
describes as “terrific and
very committed.”
She met Kenwright, the
West End theatre impresario
and chairman of Everton FC,
while in a relationship with
Michael Winner and they
have been together for some
18 years. They have never
married, however. Was she
put off after her painful (and
public) divorce from actor
Madhav Sharma in 1988?
“The short answer is
yes, absolutely. But neither
of us feels the need to
marry. We have a terrific
relationship so why change
it? It’s not to say we never
will, but it’s not something
we want to do right now.”
The couple are obviously
close. Kenwright has been
a staunch champion both of
Seagrove’s work as an actress
– he’s cast her in scores of
his productions – and of her
animal rights campaigning.
What was his reaction when
she told him she’d somehow
acquired a horse sanctuary?
“Well, Bill has been
supporting these horses with
me for ages anyway and he
knows I’m potty, so he said
OK. I’m not sure he understood
what a huge undertaking
it was but he’s been wonderful,
so supportive.”
Similarly, she has taken
Everton to her heart. It
was reported recently that she
was the one who persuaded
Kenwright to appoint the
club’s now celebrated
manager David Moyes.
“That’s an exaggeration,”
she says. “But I did put in
a thumbs-up for David. If Bill
listened to me, then hoorah.”
Before meeting Kenwright,
she had only a passing
interest in football, now she’s
a “rampant Evertonian”.
“When you fall in love with
someone so passionate about
football you have a choice; you
either join the party and have
fun or stand on the sidelines
wondering why you never get
to see someone. It’s much
more fun to join the party.”
The couple frequently
seek out joint theatre projects
to work on together. As
Seagrove says: “He’s one of
the best theatre producers
around – why wouldn’t I?!”
Meeting Kenwright
coincided with a new chapter
in her life. After her early
success, she took a few
wrong turns. Her marriage
collapsed, a relationship
with film director Michael
Winner turned her into
a figure of fun (“I was
seen as a publicity-seeking
bimbo,” she told one
newspaper) and then she
made The Guardian, the
hammy 1990 film about a
druid nanny with sacrificial
plans for her charge.
But she says she regrets
nothing. “I made some bad
choices and things didn’t
go in the direction I’d hoped
but I’m glad they didn’t
because I wouldn’t have met
Bill and had 18/19 years of
happiness and I wouldn’t
be where I am now. I don’t
believe in regrets. There’s
always a reason things
turn out the way they do –
perhaps you need to learn
a lesson or your life needs to
go in a different direction.”
Seagrove was never very
good at handling her early
fame. She’s spoken about the
“hatefulness” of the early
days when everyone wanted
a piece of her and how
she probably would have
“imploded” had she made
it to Hollywood.
Age has brought her
a confidence lacking
throughout her younger
years. “That’s the wonderful
thing about getting older –
you grow into yourself and
care less about what people
think of you. You know
more about life generally and you think, ‘God, I wish I’d
known that when I was younger’.”
She worries about young actors
who are catapulted to success early on.
“If you’re at a certain level –
not me, I’m a minor celebrity –
it’s very difficult. You can’t
move without someone taking
a picture of you on their phone
and you don’t know who to trust.
It’s no way to live.”
Nonetheless, she’ll admit to
missing the attention to a certain
extent, at least when it comes to
catching the eye of directors.
“It’s never easy,” she says of
ageing. “I’m not a vain person
but you do see yourself in a mirror
and think, ‘Who’s that? Oh God,
it’s me’. You feel the same but you
don’t look the same and that’s fine
but it’s hard accepting that people
don’t necessarily want to give you
parts because you’re a certain age.”
Was that part of the drive to
start producing films, I ask – to
wrestle back some control?
“Who knows? Some of it’s
because I want to put myself in
my own films, some of it’s because
I enjoy it. Whether it’s a new
direction for me, I don’t know.
I haven’t got any of them going
yet, so don’t hold your breath!”
For now, she’s enjoying the
horses and touring Volcano. “It’s
an interesting play – not typical
of Coward at all.”
Set on a Pacific island,
it’s loosely based on Coward’s
typically scandalous
experiences at his
island retreat in
Jamaica, where
the likes of
John Gielgud,
Vivien Leigh,
Laurence Olivier
and James Bond
author Iain Fleming
(who Coward had
a crush on) would
misbehave. It was
never performed in
the playwright’s lifetime –
with sexual tensions
erupting in the shadow of
an active volcano, Seagrove
says, “It was a little too close
to all of their lives. But
I read it and thought it was
an interesting piece and I was
right. It’s not frothy or light,
it’s more in the vein of Vortex
and Brief Encounter. But
people seem to love it.”
The tour officially ends
next month but there have been
whisperings it will transfer to
the West End – plenty to keep
Seagrove busy for a while yet.
 

*Volcano is at the Theatre
Royal Brighton from Monday to
Saturday, July 28. Tickets cost from
£12. To book, call 0844 8717627.