Tom Marshman explores the bond between the late Kenneth Williams and his close friend Maggie Smith, as he revisits the closeness he shared with his dear friend, the late artist Clare Thornton, in A Shining Intimacy.
A Shining Intimacy is a show about theatre, queer friendships and grief. Maggie Smith and Kenneth Williams first met in 1957 when they appeared in the same stage review. Drawn to each other and swiftly building trust, the famously prickly Williams found a soulmate in Smith, who instinctively understood, bolstered and appreciated her reclusive and closeted friend.
The friendship lasted decades as they both mastered their crafts becoming household names. They professionally collaborated and shared confidences in turn, being very necessary and important to each other.
Taking visual inspiration from the 1960’s and 70’s via an atmospheric use of projection, Tom examines Kenneth and Maggie’s characters as dreamlike apparitions within the theatre. A sensitive portrayal of their successes and personal adversities, Maggie and Kenneth’s shining intimacy belongs to a particular moment in history, allowing narrator Tom to reflect on this close friendship of his own, now lost.
A Shining Intimacy is at Camden People’s Theatre 18th – 20th May 2023, as part of a tour.
You’re bringing A Shining Intimacy to CPT and on tour, what can you tell us about the show?
It’s a highly personal show broadly speaking about queer friendships. When I heard about Kenneth Williams and Maggie Smith’s friendship I wanted to know more about what made that relationship tick. They were friends for decades and described as twin souls, their relationship was also described as a shining intimacy, that is where the title comes from.
So the piece is steeped in research about the two individuals. It has quite a unique staging in which Kenneth and Maggie appear as ghostly projections like apparitions, I perform as both of them with the make, wigs and costume. I am also myself as a narrator and storyteller which allows me to reflect on my own story.
What inspired you to write the show?
For some time, I have been performing as Kenneth Williams here and there as short monologues and I knew I wanted to develop a full length show. During lockdown I was reading more about Kenneth and discovered more about their friendship. I was living on my own and the two of them became totally absorbing to me. It was almost like they were haunting me.
So I wrote a letter to Maggie asking her about the friendship with Kenneth. I also asked if she thought that theatres would wait for us to come back to them. During lockdown I couldn’t stop thinking about all those empty theatres and the ghosts that might be there. So in some ways, the show is a love letter to theatre
When did you spot the similarities between Kenneth and Maggie’s friendship and your own friendship with Clare Thornton?
When I heard about Kenneth and Maggie’s friendship it made me think about my own friendship with an artist called Clare Thornton. Like Kenneth and Maggie, we performed together, always playing around with language together. We loved messing about and together, we were very camp.
We egged each other on in that way. Clare was also hugely supportive of everything I did and a bit of a stabilising influence like Maggie seems to have been for Kenneth. Clare’s work was more performance art but she really enjoyed all types of theatre and would often do impressions of Kenneth.
Now she is gone, she died after a long cancer battle in 2019. Sometimes I catch myself being her, using the very particular way she spoke which made me think about how Maggie was accused of playing Kenneth Williams in drag in Downton Abbey!
How will you bring these two icons to life on stage?
I think I’ve found the best anecdotes, the most moving stories, and the funniest witticisms with Kenneth and Maggie at a dressing table in the imagined dressing room we are in, all together preparing to perform. I collaborated with hair and make-up people to transform myself into Kenneth and Maggie and these sections were filmed and are what I respond to within the live show.
And what do you think will be the biggest challenge in presenting A Shining Intimacy?
They both have such unique voices, at times they sound quite similar when they are both being a bit hysterical. I wanted to embody them but not make them into caricatures. For this I worked with voice coach Carol Fairlamb from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School so that I could connect to them through their voice in the very first instance
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see A Shining Intimacy?
People have told me it’s a very unique show and it’s very moving. I want as many people to come as possible, it’s a chance to remember friendships that they have had as well as be absorbed in these two incredible stage creatures and their fabulous stories.
