GRACE'S MUSINGS: (NOT) ACTING OUR AGE

Ageism on stage and screen has been a thing for so long, I think most of us have probably stopped noticing it. It’s become the norm. Now the formidable Geraldine James, who starred as the young Rosalind (at the age of 74) in As You Like It, is demanding more roles for older actors – women in particular – to shake up the status quo.

James told The Guardian in August: “Diversity goes in every direction. We’ve got to keep creating roles for older actresses, because we do represent more and more of society.”

Though her Rosalind received rave reviews for the Royal Shakespeare Company last year, James was concerned about how audiences would take a “70-year-old skipping about pretending to be 20”.

But no one turned a hair when the then 82-year-old Ian McKellen gave his Hamlet at the Theatre Royal Windsor in 2021. Not only are women not getting enough parts in later life, but they worry about it when they do.

I don’t want to fall into that trap of writers who frequently remark that things are getting better for older actresses while at the same time failing to point out of an actor that his female co-star looks a bit too young to play his wife.

James isn’t afraid to do that – while also believing that society might finally be changing: “Leading men on television have always had inappropriately young wives. But I think people are more discerning now. I think they want to see things they believe in.” I sincerely hope that she’s right.

Taking on that battle, the Acting Your Age Campaign (AYAC) was founded by advocate Nicky Clark after she tried to restart her drama career in midlife. She noted that, “at my age, it appears that I definitely chose not just to push a penny up a mountain with my nose, but a penny that had been welded to the ground and encased in concrete with a sign on it saying ‘Not this penny, not this mountain and not ever’”.

She drafted an open letter, signed by more than 100 British actors and public figures, asking the entertainment industry to end gendered ageism, onscreen disparities and the underrepresentation of women over 45.

The letter noted that ageism targeting women is “an entrenched industry staple which is outdated, harmful and neglects the millions of audiences who appreciate seeing women over 45 telling the stories of our lives”. It was supported by Emma Thompson, Keeley Hawes, Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal and Lesley Manville – some of our greatest actresses.

AYAC says: “Currently on screen in the UK, men have a whole life and women only a shelf life.” That’s the issue in a nutshell – and it’s precisely the same battle we’re fighting with our PRO AGE campaign at Studio 10, a challenging task within a culture that is more apt to portray older men as wise and desirable and older women as disposable.

So is Geraldine James’s success as Rosalind indicative of a coming trend in British theatre? At 68, the brilliant Imelda Staunton is currently storming it at the London Palladium with her performance in Hello, Dolly!, while 78-year-old Jane Asher has been cast as Maria in Twelfth Night at the Orange Tree by artistic director Tom Littler.

He told The Guardian: “I don’t know whether there’s enough of a pattern to say that casting is changing. But it definitely should, because there is a huge wealth of talent among older female actors.”

That pattern held true for last year’s Bafta shortlist for the leading actress on TV: nominations included Sarah Lancashire, Kate Winslet, Maxine Peake and Staunton again. This isn’t just a victory for mature actresses, but for midlife audiences, too. It’s an unusual thing, as Littler has remarked, to see ourselves “properly represented on stage and not patronised by the writing – to be represented as people who have wants and lusts and grudges and lively minds and ambition and all the complexity of a human being”.

I, for one, am delighted to support a bunch of midlife women who refuse to go quietly, fighting to bust those stereotypes that have become so entrenched. When the 76-year-old Siân Phillips played Juliet at Bristol Old Vic, The Guardian’s Michael Billington described her performance as “remarkable”.

I could say the same about what’s finally happening here.