On the road, again

By PETER CALDER

I expected a fearsome figure, a bit of a battle-axe, the kind of woman Basil Fawlty might refer to as a "toxic midget" or, in moments of tenderness, "my little nest of vipers".

In the event, Prunella Scales is a wee slip of a thing, tidy and demure, like a maiden aunt. And she talks, aptly as it turns out, a bit like the Queen. I can't imagine this woman behind the reception desk at a Torquay hotel, filing her nails and emitting a braying laugh that Basil would compare to "someone machine-gunning a seal"; I more easily picture her pursing her lips and saying "we are not amused".

Dozens of roles on stage, screens (big and small) and radio attest to Scales' remarkable range and command of craft. But if the appalling Sybil Fawlty assured her of enduring fame, she has spent a good deal more of her time playing monarchs.

Her 1992 creation of the role of Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution marked the first time a reigning monarch had been portrayed in a theatrical production (a brilliant television version followed). And she has also played the Queen's great-great-grandmother.

Scales arrives in town next week with her solo show An Evening With Queen Victoria. And it's no coincidence that the night before she opens at the Maidment Theatre, her husband, Timothy West, will be treading the boards at the Civic as Sir Joseph Porter in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore.

When the two passed through town early in the winter they said the double booking was carefully planned.

"Pinafore was booked for a 10-week tour," said Scales, "and that's an awfully long time to be apart. So we asked whether there was any chance of fixing up a tour of Queen Victoria and fortunately we could."

"Mind you," West added drily, "when you look at the schedule and Pru's in Hobart and I'm in Perth."

At ages - West just turned 70 and Scales is 72 - when they might be forgiven for putting their feet up, the couple seem to have no difficulty maintaining the energy to tour. They are used to travelling, they say, just as they are used to being apart.

Scales: "It maintains the relationship at fever pitch." West: "That's probably why we're still married. We're always so glad to see each other."

The combined filmographies run to more than 120 titles but West and Scales insist that theatre is their first love. Theatrical royalty at home, they are refreshing evidence of the longevity of actors and the evanescence of celebrity. West is far too dignified to smirk at the thought of the stars who have flared and burned out while he's been working, but he might be entitled to.

"People are picked for the soaps now because of how they look and how they sound. And that's all very well. But when they've done that for a few years and they get a bit bored with it, they say I'd like to do a bit of proper acting now. I'm famous because I'm Staff Nurse Wilkins or Leading Fireman Jones or PC Brown. And sometimes they can do it but very often they find out that they can't."

That they teach a lot at Britain's leading drama schools - Scales is a specialist in training young actors to work with classical text and West is President of London's Academy of Music and Dramatic Art - attests to their dedication to their craft. That they see themselves as actors, not celebrities, is evidenced by the fact that they take the Tube to and from work when they are at home.

"I just think it's useful for people to know that even if you are off the telly you're just an ordinary person who uses the Tube," says Scales.

"Part of our job is observing people," adds West, "and you don't do that by sitting in the back of a limousine."

Scales says she's never felt burdened by the character of Sybil Fawlty. She is constantly amazed when people meet her and express surprise that she's "quite nice, really" rather than a shrewish harridan.

"It was a very stimulating job - and a tough job, too. I think the reason it was so good is because it was, like all the best comedy, close to tragedy.

"The charming sitcom is all very well, but good comedy is based on pain and danger and fear."

Performance

*Who: Prunella Scales, in An Evening with Queen Victoria

*Where and when: Maidment Theatre,

Nov 12-14; Founders, Hamilton, Nov 16; Regent, Palm North, Nov 17; Baycourt, Tauranga, Nov 18; Opera House, Wellington, Nov 20-21

*Who: Timothy West, in HMS Pinafore

*Where and when: The Civic, Nov 10-14; St James, Wellington, Nov 16-20