The histrionic Jane slipping in and out of the limelight

It is remarkable that the English, so reserved in their emotional displays in ordinary existence, should have always shown such capacity, even genius, for enacting them on the stage. Or perhaps it is only logical, theatre being for us an escape from our natural inhibitions. Whatever the explanation, we have led the world in acting for half a millennium now, and still do, emphatically. Such performances as Michael Gambon as Falstaff, or Eve Best as Hedda Gabler, or Laura Michelle Kelly as Mary Poppins — and these are only the outstanding examples — are not to be seen anywhere else on earth. There is about the West End of London, today as always, not so much a whiff of grease paint as an almost visible presence of histrionic spirits, the shades of Olivier and Thorndyke, Irving and Terry, Macready, Kean and Siddons, and beyond them Garrick and the great Elizabethans, hovering over the stages and whispering encouragement to those who now hold them.