Later, when I was preparing for my Dickens’ Women world tour in 2012, I knew I would need to be super fit; a one-woman show is immensely exhausting. I decided to spend six weeks at an Ayurvedic centre in Jaipur, called Chakrapani Ayurveda Clinic. There they prescribed and administered an oil enema every day: they pumped some oil up my arse and, after about half an hour, I’d go to the loo quite copiously. I suppose it shifts everything that’s caked around your intestines. I would absolutely recommend an Ayurvedic session in one of those places — it’s a severe regimen, but marvellously cleansing and it does somehow kick-start weight loss. I’ve never done meditation though, and I don’t go in for those smart spas where you go and get your eyebrows threaded.
In 2020, I did a programme about it: Miriam’s Big Fat Adventure for BBC Two, a two-parter looking at the obesity crisis and the body-positive movement, and exploring my own relationship with my weight. After a lifetime of worrying about it, I wanted to come to terms with my body. I wanted to work out why I am, and always have been, overweight. Could I change? And I’m not the only one: the whole country weighs more than it ever did. I was on a mission to understand why we do it to ourselves, what it’s doing to us, and how other people cope with it.
It was a surprising experience because I met some gorgeous, empowered women of the body-positive movement, dancing about and having a wonderful time, and I realised that non-skinny people could be entirely at ease and happy in their own skin. I had never really believed that until I met those people, and I admired them and wished I could be like that. Making the programme helped me to be much more compassionate towards myself. I’ve been fat all my life; there it is. I have an endomorphic frame. You just have to face who you are and deal with it, and for the most part I do.
My First Time on Broadway was. Wicked
In September 2006, I opened in Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London as the first British Madame Morrible. At the audition, they’d said, ‘You know that Madame Morrible has a couple of songs?’ ‘Well, I’m sorry but this Madame Morrible won’t have any songs, because I can’t sing,’ I replied. Then they said, ‘Can’t you do what Rex Harrison did in My Fair Lady?’ I said, ‘Well, I suppose I could try.’ So that, in fact, is what I did. I just recited the lyrics in time to the music in that classic Sprechgesang delivery.
In 2008, after a sell-out, Olivier-award nomination run in London, I was asked to play the role on Broadway. When I arrived at the rehearsals at the Gershwin Theatre in New York, the musical director, Stephen Oremus, whom I’d worked with in London, said, ‘Miriam, Stephen Schwartz [the composer] would really like to hear you sing Madame Morrible’s song.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’d love to hear me sing it too, but I can’t sing, that is the only trouble.’ Stephen said, ‘I don’t believe that, Miriam. I think you can sing — you’ve just told yourself that you can’t. And I want you to come with me and just kick it around. You’ll get there. I know you will. Just be brave. Let’s go for it!’ I agreed, so we went to the rehearsal room. Stephen sat at the piano, and we practised and practised and practised and practised and practised. And at the end of it, he put down the piano lid and said, ‘You know what, Miriam? You’re right. You can’t sing.’
So, I continued doing my Rex Harrison version for five months on Broadway. Every night the theatre was packed to the gunnels. It was quite an experience to step out there, thinking, ‘I’m actually on Broadway.’ I loved standing in the wings, watching the dancers, the lights flickering on their beautiful bodies. They were larky and fun — as the oldest person in the cast, to be on such good terms with all those gorgeous, talented young people was a joy. I’m still in touch with many of them and there’s a standing invitation for them to stay with me if they come to London.
The company was very welcoming when I arrived: it’s a bit daunting to join a fully formed company, and I was taking over from a terrific actress — Carol Kane — who originated the role of Morrible. But they took me to their hearts and couldn’t have been friendlier. They wanted to know what I’d been paid in London. Now, I love talking money, because the more information performers have, the more powerful they are. And so when they asked me what my London salary had been, I willingly told them. I wish I could remember the exact sum now, I think it was £3,500 per week.
A few days later, I got a call from David Stone, the producer of Wicked. It started as a friendly phone conversation but very quickly turned nasty. He said, ‘The company has been complaining about you: I hear you’ve been bragging to them about your London salary.’ I couldn’t believe my ears! ‘Bragging? Not at all! They asked me, naturally, for a comparison, and I told them the truth, as I always do.’ There was a pause, then, ‘Do you want to destroy me?’ David Stone asked. I was baffled. How could I, a small-part actress, destroy the most powerful producer on Broadway? He continued: ‘You know, of course, the new salary negotiations are underway? You’re deliberately trying to destroy me.’ Nothing I said could shake his assumption. I put the phone down. I sent him a huge bottle of vintage whiskey — no response. We never spoke again until I left the show five months later. The show is still a huge hit all over the world. It deserves to be. David is a successful producer of immense wealth. But I wouldn’t swap my reputation for his, any day.
I’d never seen myself as performing in musicals: I wanted to act, to be in a play on Broadway, but it never happened. The closest I got was to BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in Peter Hall’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest, playing Miss Prism to Lynn Redgrave’s Lady Bracknell, in 2006.[15]
I knew exactly how to play Miss Prism; she may be a Victorian spinster governess of impeccable morals, but she is boiling with sexuality. Her romantic soul is in a frenzy of love and longing for Reverend Chasuble. She may not look it, but she is still moist.
Terry Rigby was my Chasuble. An excellent actor, but he didn’t like me at all, and refused to accept that we were a parallel romantic couple to the other young lovers. It was hard to play with him, so it wasn’t a happy experience, but Lynn was magical — superb as Bracknell, a loving company leader — and bravely fighting the cancer which would kill her five years later. We all loved Lynn and trusted her completely.
I looked up the reviews just now as I write this, which is the first time I’ve ever read them. I strongly believe reviews should not be read during the run of a show. Good reviews can make you smug, bad reviews depress; and if a company member is singled out, it can cause jealousy. I give strict instructions never to mention or discuss reviews in my hearing while the show is running. But it was a long time ago, and since mine were good, I reproduce them here!
‘Manoeuvring her stout form like a miniature battleship, Miriam Margolyes is formidable and robustly funny as Cecily’s gently censorious governess, the fatefully forgetful Miss Prism.’ That was from The New York Times. From TheaterMania: ‘Giving Redgrave a run for the money is Margolyes, whose Prism moves about with the slow splendor of an ocean liner going out to sea. Miss Prism often repeats the warning «You reap what you sow,» and what Margolyes reaps is great appreciation for her performance.’
To be compared to one ship is unfortunate, but to be compared to two looks like carelessness. I think I’ll sign out as Rear-Admiral Margolyes.
15
The cast was Terence Rigby, Bianca Amato, Charlotte Parry, Robert Petkoff, James Waterston, Geddeth Smith, James Stephens, Greg Felden, Margaret Daly and Diane Landers.