THE legendary Scottish actor, comedian, and panto queen Elaine C Smith has announced she’s creating her own award to help others follow in her footsteps.
The TV and theatre star announced on Friday that she has established a 10-year prize at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) to support and celebrate new female voices in comedy.
Smith, who has entertained audiences in a 40-year stage and screen career, studied at RCS when it was the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and graduated in 1978.
The £500 prize will be presented annually to a final-year drama student across RCS’s BA Acting, BA Performance and BA Musical Theatre degree programmes at the end of the academic year.
“Making people laugh is such a joyous thing,” said Smith.
She added: “In my time, comedy in many ways was seen as lesser. Everyone wanted to do the serious roles. And invariably, what I’ve found in my career is that people who can do comedy well can also do tragedy very well.
“It's all about timing. Comedy touches people and, as the great Joni Mitchell says, laughing and crying, are the same release.
“There’s a real skill in comedy that’s innate.”
Smith is best known for starring in popular TV sitcoms including City Lights, Rab C Nesbitt and Two Doors Down along with being one of the UK’s best-loved and longest-running panto dames.
The actor hopes the prize will help to empower women in comedy, particularly those from working-class backgrounds like her own, by offering financial support during “challenging times” for the creative arts industry.
“The prize is me wanting to leave a trail of sweeties, saying to women, ‘here’s a route, come on’,” the Glasgow-born comedian said.
“In a time like this, when the creative arts are under attack, it’s a wee bit of money to help them along the way, to buy the books they need or to afford to go and see a few shows.
“Even though I had a grant, I was working in clubs and bars and waitressing all the way through my studies and living week to week. Hopefully the students – even if they don’t have a clue who I am – will think ‘well, if she did it, so can I.”
Smith explained her love of the arts was sparked at school.
“When you could perform and sing you got attention … and I was a show-off,” she laughed.
She recalled that watching people like Doris Day and Lucille Ball being funny was a real eye-opener for her and that she really wanted to be Calamity Jane.
“It was also seeing what comedy did to my parents – how they laughed at Morecambe and Wise and Billy Connolly. Billy was a really big influence – especially hearing your own accent and culture, particularly when he was on talk shows like Parkinson,” she said.
Smith’s passion for the arts has carried over to teaching, with accessibility being important to her.
After graduating from RSAMD and completing a teaching course, Smith worked as a drama teacher in a school in Edinburgh for three years.
“When I was a teacher, I took my kids to see stuff all the time and to make them realise that they shouldn’t be intimidated walking into a theatre. The theatre was theirs,” she said.
“Pantomime, and one of the reasons I keep doing it, is because it’s a gateway into the theatre. It might be the only time people go and the first time kids see an orchestra, live band or dancers.
“I grew up believing that art belonged to other people, and posher people than me. The notion of art was defined by the middle to upper classes. But art belongs to everyone.”
