Michael Medwin (centre) in The Army Game

Soldiering on

Michael Medwin made his name in The Army Game, but he's now treading the boards in the Open Air, writes Tom Foot

ACCORDING to Shakespeare’s famous seven ages of man speech the 83-year-old actor Michael Medwin should be well into the “second childishness” phase – “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
But Medwin – who has been in 76 British films, worked with actors John Gielgud, Ian Charleson and Albert Finney, and is presently playing the tailor Starveling in A Midsummer Summer Night’s Dream at the Open Air Theatre – still lives life with the enthusiasm of a small child.
Surprisingly elusive, he was hard to pin down for interview.
Mr Medwin can’t talk on Friday – he’s playing golf with his old mate Sean Connery on the perfectly manicured greens of Sandringham Golf Course, where he has been a member for 54 years.
“Connery is a great friend of mine,” he says. “But I think he’s rather gone off golf. Too many beatings I imagine.”
Medwin plays off a 14 handicap – which would give most senior players, let alone James Bond, something to think about.
Mr Medwin can’t talk on Monday either – a traps and jumps enthusiast – he’s out at Royal Ascot picking the winners.
When I finally get hold of him on Tuesday, I have interrupted him watching his runner in the 4.55 Ascot Stakes.
“I’m sorry you’re going to have to wait,” he apologises putting the receiver down on the table and turning the television up to a deafening level – sans ears, perhaps.
The commentator’s drone: “And the riders come hurtling round the last bend it’s Elusive Dream showing the way with five furlongs to go.”
Clearly influenced by the play at the Open Air Theatre, and perhaps taken by Shakespeare’s treatise on fate, Medwin has backed Elusive Dream – but suddenly it’s falling away as a 33/1 shot miraculously romps home.
“Balls!” comes the cry, the television switches off, “now, what is it you want again old boy? Let’s start with Regent’s Park.”
“It has changed a bit since I first went there 40 years ago. It used to be a pretty primitive scene. Just a bunch of deckchairs – there was no auditorium. It was jolly cold but I don’t expect that’s changed.”
Medwin has also played at the King’s Head in Upper Street along his illustrious acting journey which has seen him befriend some of Britain’s most famous actors.
He began his acting career in Newcastle Repertory in 1946. He went up there aged 23 from his home in Dorset to “get a job, young boy” and hasn’t looked back.
“I picked up some good habits and some bad habits there,” he says.
Medwin was lucky – on the brink of a media revolution with an abundance of jobs for those in the right place at the right time – he left the stage finding work in black and white films of the late 1940s.
After a string of lesser roles he hit the big time as the 1950s drew to a close in The Army Game, a British television comedy series.
With actors Bernard Bresslaw, Leslie Fyson and Alfie Bass, Medwin took the theme tune from The Army Game into the charts.
“The Army Game was the highlight of my career,” he says. “I played the Bohemian Corporal Springer. We played live at Chelsea Palace once and it was the longest-running series at the time. Most shows were given seven or 12 shows but we had 39 shows over nearly two years.”
Medwin claims to have been cast as the nephew to Albert Finney’s ‘Scrooge’ before Finney was picked for his part. Finney and Medwin were good friends, partnering a film production company called Memorial Enterprises in 1965. The 22 years as producer constituted Medwin’s longest break from acting in more than 60 years, but he speaks highly of his producing career.
“When Finney asked me to be a partner I just started going to an office instead of a studio,” he says. “Making films is like going to war. You have to assemble an entire army together. It’s not just about your own performance.”
Medwin no longer has to worry about going to war – though he is still soldiering on in bit part roles as an actor. This summer he plays the tailor Starveling, who doubles as Moon in the play-within-the-play, with the Open Air Theatre’s favourite son director Ian Talbot calling the shots.
Medwin has played the part for the Open Air Theatre before, but is surprisingly scathing of Shakespeare’s plays.
He says: “I have only come to do Shakespeare at the end of my life. I always found the language extremely difficult. It’s all set in Elizabethan times and that has never really interested me. I did Ben Jonson’s Volpone once, which is similar, but I prefer playwrights like Bernard Shaw – shows that are accessible and that the audience can relate too. This production is very funny though, very accessible.
“I still find acting very rejuvenating – it gets the adrenalin going. When I can’t cope with the lines anymore that’s when I’ll shut up shop,” he says. “I find it harder and harder to learn the lines – but I’m not done yet.”

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