Downton Abbey star Dame Penelope Wilton has shocked fans by teaming up with Glenn Close for a deadly sister act in a new murder comedy. “We get up to no good,” she says…
Fans will be surprised to hear Dame Penelope Wilton and serial killer in the same breath. But at 79, she is teaming up with Fatal Attraction star Glenn Close for a deadly sister act in a new murder comedy, Up to No Good. She says: “We are sisters and we get up to no good. It is a sort of a dark subversive comedy. Does it involve men? No, it involves murder.”
Dame Penelope, who has enjoyed a distinguished TV, film and stage career, is particularly known for her comic timing, seen in the 1980s BBC classic Ever Decreasing Circles, with Richard Briers and Peter Egan and Ricky Gervais hit After Life. Yet, she recalls a time when she was asked if she could do comedy.
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Recalling her audition for Ever Decreasing Circles, she laughs: “They didn’t want to give me the job. They said, ‘can you be funny?’ I said, ‘well, I have been, sure.’” She is certain to have fans in stitches once more in her new role, in which Glenn, also 79, plays Maud Oldcastle, who sets out to kill anyone crossing her path – while Dame Penny (Charlotte) who lives with her, is her conscience. The six-parter, based on Helene Tursten’s short story collections An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, will be out in the autumn.
Dame Penny, who has been filming in and around west London for the show – also starring Richard E Grant and Tanya Reynolds – says: “Glenn is, of course, iconic for Fatal Attraction, but in Up To No Good she is playing an older lady. I think what the series will show is what you can get away with if you pretend to be an old lady.” Asked if Glenn’s victims deserve to be bumped off, she chuckles: “I think on the whole I would agree. It is like when you say ‘I could murder him’…and then you do.”
Charmed by Glenn, she adds: “We both come from the theatre, so we had a lot in common.” Peter Egan, 79, who played Dame Penelope’s suave neighbour Paul Ryman in Ever Decreasing Circles – which she thanks for her longevity – is also in the show.
Finding it hard to believe her breakthrough TV hit debuted 37 years ago, another of her triumphs, After Life, in which she played Anne, a wise, warm hearted widow, was this week named ‘best British modern comedy’ in a Radio Times poll.
She says: “The main reason I was cast for After Life was because Ricky was an enormous fan of Ever Decreasing Circles. He adored it. After Life was his homage to the show. He cast me as Anne, which was the same name of my character, Ann Bryce, in Ever Decreasing Circles.
“The scenes I had with Ricky were these two people who had lost people sitting on a bench in a churchyard talking. And a lot of people found themselves in that situation, not sitting on a bench, but had lost people during Covid. I had many letters from people who found enormous solace in hearing our conversations in the show. It all rang an enormous amount of bells in people’s minds and has continued to do so.”
Delighted to still be working five decades after launching her career in 1969 in a series of plays at Nottingham Playhouse, she says: “I think you have to keep working. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t. I am hoping to do more theatre too – that is what I like doing best.”
Dame Penny grew up with two sisters, Linda and Rosemary, in west London, with parents Cliff and Alice, who struggled with anaemia, but eventually died of cancer, aged 60. She recalls: “She was delicate. She was very anaemic, so she kept lying down.”
No one knew the cause of her mum’s ill health, but Dame Penny and her sisters were sent to boarding school to ease the strain for her. She says: “I loathed it.” Her family worked in film distribution, but Dame Penelope did not harbour any early acting ambitions, saying: “I was brought up very, very ordinarily. I didn’t do any theatricals at all.
“But I did love going to the theatre when I was young. One of the great moments is when that curtain rises, and there’s all the lights, and there’s a whoosh. I was sitting in the dark and I wanted to be up there. That gave me enormous pleasure.”
And, after a spell living in Paris after boarding school, Dame Penelope enrolled at the Drama Centre London. She remembers: “I did a lot of auditions, and I didn’t get in. LAMDA didn’t want me and RADA didn’t want me. Then I went to a place called the Drama Centre.
“It was great to be there as I enjoyed working with a group. I’ve never been confident. But I’m more confident on the stage than I think I am in life, really.” She has also shone in front of the camera – appearing in everything from Doctor Who to The Borrowers, and in Downton Abbey as the widowed Isobel Crawley, which gave her the chance to work with the late Dame Maggie Smith, who she idolised growing up.
She says: “With Maggie Smith, when I was doing Downton, it was like playing tennis with somebody much better than you. You have to return the ball and keep that going. She was a brilliant, brilliant actress. When I was a young actress, I went to see her at the National Theatre in London. I wanted to be Maggie Smith. I was an enormous admirer of her wit, her timing, her sadness. She could do everything. She was an extraordinary person to work with and to watch.”
These days, alongside work, Dame Penelope, who has a daughter, theatre producer Alice Massey, and two grandchildren, relishes family life. Twice married, but currently single, the Londoner, who had a stillborn son before Alice, says: “I never had to impress my parents. They were just accepting of me. I’m, hopefully, the same with my daughter and grandchildren. I’m delighted with them. I can remember when my daughter Alice was at school.
“A teacher said to me that Alice was in the middle of the class. And she seemed to be upset by that. I asked “Is she happy? Is she a happy girl? And the teacher said, “Oh, she’s very happy”. I said, “That’s all I mind. As long as she’s happy and she’s doing her best, I don’t care. You know, everyone will reach what they can do. I find most people spend most of their lives doing their best.”
Looking forward to the future, Dame Penelope radiates optimism. She says: “I have been happy overall. I’ve had unhappy times. Very unhappy times. But I’m a happy person. My glass is half full.”
*Dame Penelope Wilton was speaking at the Born Free Footsteps to Freedom annual fundraising gala.
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