Diana Rigg At The BBC (BBC/DVD/2011)
Dame Diana Rigg is one of those British actresses who theoretically can do no wrong as an actor. She has been at this for some 50 years now and became a household name since her late ‘60s TV satire, THE AVENGERS. But she has extensive range in her acting technique and this collection of work from the British Broadcast Corporation points up her assets as well as her flaws.
Let me say upfront that I have been an admirer of Ms. Rigg’s work for some years, having seen her on Broadway in “Abelard and Heloise,” in films and on TV, most recently in her deadpan role as the recipient of Daniel Radcliff’s flown condom in Ricky Gervais’ superb comedy series, EXTRAS. I also own her now out-of-print “No Turn Unstoned,” which quoted many famous actors’ bad reviews, including her own. She is gifted, trained, funny and pathetic when needed to be. This collection of her televised work dates back to 1977, when she hosted and stared in six weekly short-plays, “Three Piece Suite,” in which she played three very different humorous pieces a week. The best ones show her comedic range, from satirizing Noel Coward (“Briefer Encounter” and “Bitter Suite”) to more contemporary ideas. Her stacked and blowsy American starlet, in vivid aquamarine and huge blond hair, caught an emblem of the horrors of the manufactured star-system. And in “Unexplained Laughter” (from 1977) she plays an exhausted journalist who journeys with a friend to the countryside, only to be haunted by ghostly laughter.
While most of this is a joy, what it does is also point out her seeming inability to personalize the emotional side of her characters. Much of her generation of stage-trained actor allowed themselves to be limited in their emotional attachments, due to that awful “British gentility” that ended up masking and hiding the emotional empathy of their characters. Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Mirren have managed to transcend that particular limitation in their work and they have been lionized for it. Still, Ms. Rigg remains a magnificent actor, whatever these perceived limitations. For one thing, her comic timing is peerless, never more so than in the five “Mrs. Bradley Mysteries,” (all shown in 2000), which haven’t aged well, unlike the woman who portrays her, wherein her 1920s rich psychotherapist/sleuth solves murders with keen observation, an awareness of Sex, and much wit and humor.
Some of the shows picked for this collection are now dated, but the historical sleuth in all of us can find the oddity of Morecombe and Wise’s TV show, er, interesting. She manages to sparkle in all her comedy, for which we may be grateful.
Check out this collection for your own reasons. You’ll find much to enjoy.