A Conversation With Patricia Hodge

With Edward Seckerson

Performance Times: Sunday 15th February at 3:00pm

Approx: 1 hour 30 minutes without an interval

Patricia Hodge is one of Britain’s most popular and versatile actresses. Her distinguished career on stage, film and television ranges from Shakespeare to comedies and modern classics. Her most recent stage appearance was in the West End revival of Noel Coward’s Relative Values. What is perhaps less well known is her work in musical theatre, which includes the original London companies of ‘Pippin’ and ‘Hair’, ‘The Mitford Girls’ at Chichester, co-starring with Dame Judi Dench in the 1995 London revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at the National Theatre and as Gertrude Lawrence in ‘Noel and Gertie’ for which she received an Olivier Award nomination.

She has appeared in roles as diverse as in The Naked Civil Servant opposite John Hurt, as Myra Arundel in the 1984 BBC version of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever, as Margaret Thatcher in The Falklands Play, and as Betty, the wife of tycoon Robert Maxwell, in the BBC TV drama Maxwell opposite David Suchet. She also took the female lead in the 1983 film Betrayal, based on Harold Pinter’s play.

She was nominated for a BAFTA for her role in the television adaptation of Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac in 1987, and was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the production of Money at the Royal National Theatre.

She is perhaps best known to recent TV audiences for her performance as Miranda’s despairing mother Penny in three series of the hugely successful BBC sitcom Miranda, the final episode of which was shown on New Year’s Day.

Formerly Chief Classical Music Critic of The Independent, Edward Seckerson is a writer, broadcaster, podcaster, and musical theatre obsessive. He wrote and presented the long-running BBC Radio 3 series “Stage & Screen”, in which he interviewed many of the biggest names in the business – among them Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Liza Minnelli, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. During his journalistic career he has written for most major music publications and is still on the panel of Gramophone magazine. He appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and presented the 2007 series of the musical quiz Counterpoint. On television, he has commentated at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition a number of times. He has published books on Mahler and the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

Edward conducted one of the last major interviews with Leonard Bernstein and his audio podcast Sondheim – In Good Company proved a significant contribution to Sondheim’s 80th birthday year. His ongoing series of on-stage conversations with stars of musical theatre have proved immensely popular and he continues to tour with Patricia Routledge in Facing the Music, a show chronicling her little known career in the genre.