‘Remarkable, revelatory, inspiring’: Yvonne Brewster pays tribute to actor Mona Hammond

Mona Hammond during rehearsals for The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God at the Mermaid theatre in London, 1968. Photograph: Bob Aylott/Getty Images

Mavis Chin came to England from Jamaica to take up acting. In those far off days there was no possibility of earning a living acting in her homeland so she studied shorthand and typewriting, saved every penny and finally arrived in England with the intention of going on the stage.

She did. During the long course of her career from a walk-on in The World of Suzie Wong to starring with Dame Edith Evans in the play The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God in 1968, one could never second guess her revelatory takes on the characters she played.

She changed her names: Mavis became Mona, Chin became Hammond. These changes took place early in her stage career as one way of avoiding stereotypical casting. Mona Hammond had a rare talent. Her attention to detail was phenomenal. As Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, in 1989, she spent hours just getting the twist in the wrist right for her fan.

She dug so deeply into the characters she played that she became influenced by them in her daily life. Working over a lifetime with this remarkable actor was revelatory, inspiring, and as many with whom she worked found, challenging. One night I stood at the back of the auditorium checking on our King Lear production in 1994. When she came on I quite forgot it was Mona and became caught up in her dual personality portrayal of Shakespeare’s Fool. I was shaken to the core not to have recognised my friend in the role.

Mona Hammond as the Fool with Ben Thomas as King Lear at the Cochrane theatre, London, directed by Yvonne Brewster in 1994. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Mona was one of the founder members of Talawa theatre company in 1986. She was involved right from the start and was determined for it to succeed. She acted in many of the first productions of the company. This was her way of hitching her colours to the mast. There was her groundbreaking Lady Bracknell, but her slave woman in our second play, An Echo in the Bone (1986), was something that stays with you. The BBC “found” her in King Lear and whisked her away to EastEnders but that’s life.

Mona was good at giving gifts. She spent hours in junk shops, upmarket emporiums, everywhere to find the perfect “little something” to fit the occasion. She found small, out of the way Chinese restaurants to hide away from prying eyes and devote herself to the matter of eating, which she did with great relish yet still staying as thin as a rake.

Mona was a friend, a colleague and a most honest critic. Walk good girl.