DAILY RECORD: By Vivienne Aitken 8th August 8th August 2024
Miriam Margolyes delivers acting and comedy masterclass at Edinburgh Fringe Margolyes and Dickens, The Best Bits, Pleasance at the EICC, Edinburgh, August 7, 2024. ***** Miriam Margolyes is wowing audiences with her love of Dickens and her frank revelations in Edinburgh It should be compulsory for young adults and comedians to watch this Miriam Margolyes masterclass to learn how to hold the audience in the palm of your hand. The larger than life and often controversial BAFTA award winning actress is appearing to sell out audiences at the Fringe as she demonstrates her love for Dickens and displays her wicked sense of humour. Margolyes opens with a pawky: "I'm not going to introduce myself because if you don't know who I am, why the f*** are you here". The line sets the scene for 70 minutes of unadulterated joy. She kicked off by reading, reciting and acting many of her favourite excerpts from her hero's greatest works. She switched with ease from character to character with the exchange between a pompous Mr Bumble and an almost coquettish Mrs Corney from Oliver Twist a particular delight. Margolyes demonstrated the skills which have made her one of the country's most celebrated actresses. The second part of her show moved away from the nineteenth century bang up to date in the twenty-first as she invited questions from the audience, telling them: "Ask anything - sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, but I don't know much about the last two." Promising to answer every question she proceeded to go into detail from everything from her favourite book to sexual, open-air experiences with male Scottish soldiers, even though she has always been a confirmed lesbian. And she revealed the "worst celebrity interactions" she'd experienced were with Glenda Jackson, Terry Scott and Arnold Schwartzenegger , confessing she "loathed" Scott, branding him "a nasty little groper". She admitted to having called Jackson "a cow" and said the Terminator actor "farted in [her] face" when she was trapped by her neck in a scene . She claimed he'd "enjoyed seeing a woman squirming under him". Menstruation, gender issues, orgasms and male urination all got the Margolyes treatment but she turned serious when she touched on her Jewish upbringing, telling the audience: "I would like to stress my sympathies are with the She said given the power to sack anybody in the world, she would pick Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But she also put politicians Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Robert Jenrick, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and former US President Donald Trump on her hit list. And of Keir Starmer, the lifelong Labour supporter said: "I don't like what he's doing at the moment". She may not like how he's performing but Margolyes' adoring fans love what she's doing and at 83 she shows no signs of mellowing with age.
Posted : 8th August 2024