Tom Courtenay: Dear Tom - Letter From Home

Random House

$59.95

Review: Susan Budd*

This is not the usual luvvie book written by an actor of mature years, reflecting on past successes and ignoring failures. It does not drop names of the rich and famous, shaft competitors or excoriate critics. It is an extraordinarily moving selection of letters from Tom Courtenay's mother and, incidentally, a fascinating piece of social history.

Courtenay was one of the new breed of working-class actors from the north of England who became stars in the early 1960s in plays by Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney and Keith Waterhouse.

His first movie performance, at the age of 23, in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner brought him instant fame, but the star was not born overnight. The letters reveal the hard grind, the wrong turnings and the flashes of luck that brought him success and the love and support of a woman who had never had the chance to explore her own talents.

Courtenay was born near the Fish Dock in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1937. It was a tough life, but the camaraderie of those squeezed into crumbling tenements and the warmth of big, extended families ensured it was not bleak.

He does not romanticise the life. The houses were ugly, inconvenient and cold and they housed more sinners than saints. His father worked hard for a pitiful wage and his mother resented the drudgery of housework. She was fragile and pretty, with a strong yearning for beauty and creativity.

Her letters reveal the frustrations of her life - the lack of privacy, the constant demands on her by family and neighbours, the struggle to write poetry and plays. They are funny, disarmingly honest and poignant. Her attempts at creative writing are, sadly, not good. They lack the energy and charm of her letters, which are fascinating for their evocation of daily life, her acerbic observations and comments on her wide reading stemming from the plays in which her son was performing, from Chekhov to Shakespeare.

They also reveal Courtenay's deep unhappiness at London University. He was the first boy in his family to attend university, although to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts was his true ambition. He was torn between his father's wishes that he obtain a solid degree and his desire to act.

The weekly letters reveal a great deal about Courtenay, warts and all. He is often, like most young men, selfish and uncommunicative and he shoulders the blame unflinchingly. But the love between mother and son irradiates the pages of an absorbing book.

* Susan Budd is the Herald's theatre critic.