Prunella Scales will always be remembered for her TV performances in Fawlty Towers and for her expeditions with her husband, Timothy West, in Great Canal Journeys. But she was also a stage actor of vast experience whose career was defined by a natural gift for comedy often, though not exclusively, seen in theatrical partnership with her husband. I got a glimpse of their closeness when I hosted a discussion with West some years ago. Our stage chat seemed to go well but in the interval Pru, as she was universally known, popped backstage to give her husband directorial notes, which he gratefully accepted.
Her long life in the theatre began in 1947 when she was a member of the Old Vic Theatre school set up by Michel Saint-Denis in the bomb-damaged building on London’s Waterloo Road. Her fellow students included Joan Plowright, Denis Quilley and Alan Dobie and future directors such as Frank Dunlop and Christopher Morahan. The rigorous Stanislavskian approach influenced a stage career of a kind few young actors today will ever emulate.
