A woman of substance

Felicity Kendal tells a surprised Mary Wakefield of her admiration for Mrs Warren

From the moment Mrs Warren bustles in halfway through Act I of Mrs Warren’s Profession, she’s clearly an excellent sort. ‘A genial and presentable old blackguard of a woman,’ says George Bernard Shaw fondly of his heroine. And she is a heroine, though she’s also a brothel-keeper as compromised as St Joan is righteous.

I’ve only read the play, not seen it, but I’m also very fond of Mrs Warren, and, as I walk to the Comedy Theatre to meet Felicity Kendal, I begin to worry. Kendal playing Mrs Warren in the West End? The more I think about it, the less suitable it seems. Surely Felicity is winsome and twee; Mrs W is a business-like old pimp. How can that work? Would Mrs Warren even want Kendal on her books, I wonder, as I climb the carpeted stairs to the theatre’s upper balcony.