Don Warrington
The star of the classic 70s sitcom Rising Damp has come back to direct a brand new stage adaptation of the show that rocketed him to fame. Lucy Johnston finds out more
There’s no mistaking the familiar, perfectly rounded tones on the answerphone.
“Umm, leave a message and I’ll ring back as sooooon as I can, thank you very much,” they inform me, stressing the word ‘soon’ in a style of which Professor Higgins would greatly approve. Don Warrington, it would seem, is not at home.
These precise, well-enunciated tones area long way from the actor’s Trinidadian roots and Newcastle upbringing, but they have long become his trademark in a stage and TV career that has taken him around the world and earned him an MBE.
And when he does finally answer, his conversational tone is just as considered and etiquette-infused in person – if also a little tired. As quickly becomes apparent, Warrington is not fully in conversational mode today.
“No, no. No one warned me you would be calling,” he says, politely but literally correcting my loosely phrased enquiry. “They simply told me.”
The trademark voice – along with the great contemporary actor attached to it – has been in evidence for nearly 40 years, most recently as the impeccable chauffeur Hoke Coleburn on the UK tour of Driving Miss Daisy.
But Don’s next theatrical exploit will see him quietly tucked away behind the scenes, as he directs the eagerly anticipated stage adaptation of the classic TV sitcom Rising Damp – written, like the sitcom itself and the play upon which it was based, by Eric Chappell.
Rising Damp was the show that, without warning, rocketed Don to UK television fame in the 1970s. In it he played the terribly polite student-cum-African prince tenant, Philip Smith, to Leonard Rossiter’s bigoted, deluded and barmy landlord, Mr Rigsby.
Did he ever expect to find himself revisiting, in this new capacity, such an iconic staple of British drama?
“I didn’t even imagine it six weeks ago! The invitation came completely out of the blue. There I was, peacefully driving Miss Daisy around the UK, and now I’m here. I simply thought: ‘Why not?’” he explains earnestly.
Characteristically cool and calm about the growing anticipation of the original TV show’s numerous fans, he seems to feel no anxiety about living up to expectations.
“I can but do my best. We open tomorrow night, so we shall see what transpires. People will come to it with expectations, just as they might with a Shakespeare play.
I can’t do anything about that. I’m not here to replicate something that has gone before. What I’m trying to do is liberate the actors, so they can make it their own and take the audience with them.”
And how does it feel to be coming face to face with Philip, after all this time?
“The thing is, it’s not the same world that I’m stepping into. Back then it was complete immersion – we would get utterly consumed by the scene. Whereas now, I have to be objective. I have to approach this play with a methodology, as I would any other. I can’t be attached to my old life – someone else is taking that on now.”
And then, once he’s set this show safely on the road with all his meticulous care and attention, Warrington will be back on TV in the crime comedy drama Death in Paradise.
After that, it’s off to star in the Arthur Miller play All Our Sons – another impressive part to add to his resume. And yet, he insists, there is no grand plan for navigating his career.
“Oh goodness, no. I tried, but to no avail. Grand plans simply don’t work.”
Don Warrington may be a man of few words today, but those that he does speak are good.
New Victoria, Woking, Jul 1-6
