Phillip Bergson

In such grim times, and with such over-budgeted but under-scripted movies hurtling into cinemas around the globe, what a delight Picturehouses brought across the troubled British Isles last night with nation-wide previews in their lovingly-run cinemas -for One Night Only- of a simply marvellous new  documentary Nothing Like a Dame (83 minutes, co-produced by BBC TV and due for subsequent cinema outings in due course).Roger Michell has fashioned a fascinating and frequently funny series of simple conversations between a quartet  of historic Leading Ladies.The venue is the amply-expanded old "cottage" near Chichester that still  houses Joan Plowright the Lancashire lass who became Sir Laurence Olivier's  Lady when he was performing in the Sussex Festival Theatre (they met on-screen I think first in Tony Richardson's adaptation of The Entertainer), where  now  Dame Joan  resides, sadly near-blind but still mobile and hugely lucid, and to its lovely garden -or, during a brief rainy shower, indoors in  a comfy salon-four formidable  comrades-in-greasepaint and clearly long-time and long-suffering old friends Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench,  Dame Eileen Atkins and Dame Joan Plowright  gather to gossip, reminisce-and with an occasional off-screen prompting, survey and summarise over 70 years each of their  performances on stage, in films, and  in celebrated- and some less glorious-television productions.

The title sets the tone well, and as soon as Nino Rota's  evocative melody from Amarcord plays beneath the title you know you are in very good hands. There are some of the already  well-known anecdotes (when Dame Maggie was playing Desdemona to Dame Joan's hubby -( "Well you already were a Lady")-Olivier as the heavily made-up Moor of Venice, as a vocal exercise she called into his dressing room at the Old Vic one night "How now, brown cow?" ), but there are also many fresher tales from the Green Room and from these legends in their salad days(and Edinburgh Festival nights spent fleeing from theatrical knights apparently!).But even predatory stage partners are dissed with affection, and as you might expect it is Dame Maggie who comes up with most of  the waspish asides, and Dame Judi some  of the ruder barbs.Very judicious editing knits in a wealth of wonderful clips and old fotos, stage bills,memoirs of the era of  West End hits,Globes ancient and modern, and distinguished flops and Royal Premieres.Most intriguing is footage of each of the actresses receiving her Honour from a member of our Royal Family. Politcal observations surface occasionally;wit,wisdom and very  few regrets pour forth in every sequence and the film really fizzes like the  glasses of sparkling wine these living legends are occasionally permitted to indulge  in.It is a rare production that could well sustain a longer running time- may these monarchs of the movies reign over us yet.No one can rain on their parades.

Phillip  Bergson                      The film was on release across Great Britain  in various  cinemas  until it  was suddenly telecast on BBC TV on the night of 2nd June and now can be viewed freely throughout this month on the BBC's  own IPlayer 

www.bbc.co.uk