Ruth Draper and Her Company of Characters

Broadcast BBC Radio Four, December 2002 I was invited by producer Jonathan James Moore to put together a tribute to my great theatrical hero Ruth Draper (1884-1956). It was a great honour to be able to pay public tribute to this brilliant performer, now sadly mostly forgotten but a huge and continuing influence on my own solo stage work. I was particularly pleased that we able to access rare recordings of Draper from the BBC's own archives, as well as playing copious extracts from the monologues recorded in 1954/55, when she was about seventy years old. You will also hear Joyce Grenfell and Maureen Lipman. For more on Ruth Draper see: www.drapermonologues.com