Will She Do? by Eileen Atkins — a frank, funny and sometimes startling memoir

An Emmy, three Olivier awards, a Bafta and a damehood to boot: you might think there was nothing left for one of Britain’s most revered actresses to do beyond admiring her trophies. Instead, granted time by a seemingly never-ending pandemic, the 87-year-old Eileen Atkins wrote about a challenging and often brutal journey to stardom, recently playing Queen Mary in The Crown. Along the way she found time to co-write Upstairs Downstairs with her friend Jean Marsh.

Startling, candid and often disquietingly funny — Atkins proves to be a marvellous raconteur, with a voice that sounds dated only when she scolds the #MeToo brigade for being wimpish — Will She Do? is an astonishing achievement that reminds us just how tough life was for aspiring actors in an earlier age.

The book starts on a council estate in north London, where Eileen’s seamstress mother got together with a creepily fascinating dance teacher — “Madame Yandie”, who demanded to be known as “Auntie Kathleen” — to create a child star. Aged six, “Baby Eileen” was trilling songs (“I got ze eye”) and showing off her home-made frilly knickers while tap-dancing in working men’s clubs. By nine, she was riding the Tube across a blacked-out London to wow GIs with her risqué routine alongside grown-up stars like Randolph Scott and Anna Neagle. Unsurprisingly, the audience “roared their approval”. Eileen’s mum started planning for her daughter’s future as a chorus girl.

Spare a thought for the actors’ wives dismissed as ‘utterly, arse-achingly boring’

Brought up in a working-class home where books were regarded as a threat, she got her chance to escape when “Auntie Kathleen” paid for a private education. That led to a scholarship to the prestigious Latymer grammar school, where a divinity teacher, Mr Burton, offered his favourite pupil elocution lessons and introduced her to Shakespeare. Aged 13, Eileen’s mind was made up: “I would be an actress, not a dancer.” Her horrified mother looked “as though she’d hatched a snake”.

Nobody becomes an actor by luck. Persistence helps, as does ruthless guile. Atkins possessed these qualities in spades. Turned down by Rada drama school for lack of a cut-glass accent, by 20 she was playing Rattigan roles in repertoire and channelling Celia Johnson. Joining a prestigious small company in Oxford, she took over as assistant stage manager (lots of washing and ironing costumes) from a wistful young Maggie Smith.

Acting memoirs can be relied upon to reveal a few valued tips. The best one Atkins was given was when the comedian Ronnie Barker told her to look credible, not noticeable. Open-air acting at Regent’s Park taught her voice projection: “I can hear the ducks but I can’t hear a quack from you,” yelled the director. Lesson learnt. Atkins still has a voice that can make a whisper resonate like a bell.

Nobody ever had to give Dame Eileen lessons in survival. Some of the best parts of Will She Do? describe the jobs she took between roles. From market research (which found Eileen doorstopping an astonished Edith Sitwell to inquire how much flour the poet’s household used) to waitressing, she clung grimly on, waiting for the next part. But if a director didn’t please her, she let him — directors were always male in those days — know it. Asked to strip when auditioning for Peter Brook’s Theatre of Cruelty, Glenda Jackson swiftly dropped her knickers. Atkins refused. Ordered to don an unflattering grey wig for an Ionesco play, she dyed it flaming auburn.

Critical and sometimes devastating — spare a thought for the actors’ wives dismissed as “utterly, arse-achingly boring”, or the unnamed ageing actress glimpsed sticking pins into an effigy of Beryl Reid while capering and chanting, stark naked, around a candlelit dressing room — Atkins is frequently uncharitable. But she’s never, ever dull.

Will She Do? Act One of a Life on Stage by Eileen Atkins Virago, £18.99, 311 pages

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