Mary Kenny

Diary – 11 August 2006

‘Oh, God, you couldn’t buy that publicity!’ people exclaimed as Mel Smith appeared on the front page of a clutch of newspapers, on radio and TV and finally on the world news channels

issue 12 August 2006

Edinburgh

‘Oh, God, you couldn’t buy that publicity!’ people exclaimed as Mel Smith appeared on the front page of a clutch of newspapers, on radio and TV and finally on the world news channels.

Mel is Winston Churchill in my play Allegiance (which depicts the night that Churchill and Michael Collins got drunk together in 1921), and a fracas had arisen about his entitlement to smoke the Churchillian cigar. Heroic Mel was insisting on lighting up the Havana on stage, in defiance of Scotland’s draconian anti-smoking laws. Just before curtain-up on Monday morning, a rumour went around that the police were standing by, the heavies of the Edinburgh Council were waiting to pounce, the Assembly Rooms venue would be closed down, the theatre’s director, William Burdett-Coutts, would be fined £5,000, everyone would be put out of work and any fees earned would be confiscated. To save everyone being fired and all productions closed down, Mel relented, at the last moment, by not actually lighting the cigar.

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