Tim Pigott-Smith’s posthumous memoir

Robert Tanitch reviews Do You Know Who I Am? A Memoir by Tim Pigott-Smith (Bloomsbury £18.99)

Tim Pigott-Smith, a much-admired actor, a jobbing actor, died unexpectedly at 70 just before his memoir was published.

The turning point in his career came in 1984 when he was cast as Ronald Merrick, the sadistic superintendent in The Jewel in the Crown, the television series about the final days of the British Raj, an adaptation of Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet.

He was a great villain; so great that some members of the public were unable to differentiate between the actor and the role and treated him as if he was Merrick.

He hated the pressure his success brought him but fame was welcome professionally because it led to better roles. He appeared in Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee and modern plays on stage and television – such as Vasquez in John Ford’s Tis Pity She’s A Whore and the Chairman in Lucy Prebble”s Enron

“I wish,” he had said, “I didn’t take acting as seriously as I do or love the theatre so much that these dominate my life.”

He acted at Bristol Old Vic, at the RSC and the National Theatre and in the West End and on Broadway. He acted in films, too, and recalls the tedium of filming the epic POW/football thriller, Escape to Victory.

One of his last performances was in Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III. His sympathetic portrayal of Prince Charles as king, refusing to sign a government bill to curb the press and forced to abdicate, was one of his best.

There are lots of anecdotes. The story of Judi Dench and the black glove has already passed into theatrical legend and is well worth hearing again.

There is high praise for Peggy Ashcroft and Anthony Quayle from whom he took over as artistic director of the touring company, Compass. There are brickbats for the Arts Council (“ignorant bureaucrats”) for being singularly unhelpful.

Tim Pigott-Smith was a generous actor full of praise for those he has worked with. There are useful insights into creating a role and sound advice to actors and directors: “You must not allow modern moral judgements to subvert the ethics of the play.”

Tim Pigott-Smith was a generous actor full of praise for those he has worked with. There are useful insights into creating a role and sound advice to actors and directors: “You must not allow modern moral judgements to subvert the ethics of the play.”

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