Alex Marshall (actor and director)

Alex Marshall (born 1945) is an English actress and director, who was most active from the 1960s to the 1980s.

She has acted and directed mostly on television, but has worked on stage in both careers.

Work

Beginning her career as an actress, Marshall had many roles in theatre and television productions.[1] In 1966 she appeared on stage as Audrey Johnson in Countercrime, a play directed by Hugh Goldie, a production later recorded for television.[2] From 1969 to 1974 she was a storyteller for BBC Television’s Jackanory.[3] In 1970, she appeared on stage again, in Keep Out, Love in Progress by Walter Hall, taking the lead, opposite Robert Gillespie.[4]

In the BBC serial of Jude the Obscure (1971), Marshall took the leading role of Arabella Donn, a pig-keeper’s daughter who seduces and marries Jude. Reviewing the production in Life, John Leonard found that “Alex Marshall as Arabella steals the series”.[5]

Marshall abandoned her acting career in 1974, having made more than three hundred appearances on television over the previous ten years, to become a television director. She commented to Des Wilson, for an article in The Observer, that her income had arrived at £5,000 a year, but she was disillusioned.[1] She explained:

“Actresses are passive objects waiting to be picked up by the profession and used... When you’re in work, you’re vitally important - to the play and the company. You’re served by makeup people and wardrobe people and treated like a valuable property. Then the play is finished and suddenly you’re on the dole. Most girls leave the profession because all their drive, ambition and real love of the theatre are beaten by the humiliation of the dole queue, and by rejection, and having to answer the question from friends and relatives that strikes like a spear through the heart – 'Are you working at the moment?‘“[1]

In 1976, Marshall was researcher and script editor for Granada Television’s Crown Court[6] and later went on to direct episodes of the show. In 1978 she directed Empire Road, a BBC Two weekly serial,[7] and other directing work included episodes of Jackanory Playhouse,[8] ITV Playhouse, BBC2 Play of the Week,[9] and Play for Today.[10] In his memoirs, the actor Norman Beaton recalled Marshall from their time together on Empire Road: “An attractive blonde, she had a disarming smile which concealed a will of iron.”[11]

In 1989, Marshall directed a London stage production of Peter King’s The Health Farm.[12]

Television appearances

Television as director

Notes
  1. Des Wilson, Six girls heading for stardom in The Observer Magazine, 1974 volume, p. 524: “‘Actresses are passive objects waiting to be picked up by the profession and used’, says Alex Marshall, who made more than 300 television appearances over 10 years, and reached £5,000 a year, but finally abandoned her career as an actress to become a television director.”
  2. Lionel Carson, The Stage Year Book: Issue 35 (1966), p. 50
  3. Radio Times, Volume 202 (Newnes, 1974), pp. 36, 40
  4. Otis L. Guernsey, The Best plays of 1970–1971 (Dodds, Mead, 1971), p. 76: Keep Out, Love in Progress by Walter Hall, at Basement Theatre, Soho, with Alex Marshall and Robert Gillespie.
  5. John Leonard, writing as “Cyclops”, “Hardy fans have to be hardier” in Life magazine dated 5 November 1971, p. 13
  6. New Society, Volume 36 (New Society Limited, 1976), p. 37
  7. Akua Rugg, Brickbats & bouquets: black woman's critique (Race Today Publications, 1984), p. 43
  8. Jackanory Playhouse: Princess Griselda’s Birthday Gift (1978) at sms.cz, accessed 9 January 2019
  9. Radio Times for 15 February 1978: BBC2 Play of the Week: The Turkey Who Lives on the Hill (15 Feb 1978) dir. Alex Marshall
  10. Episode guide 1982 at britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk, accessed 9 January 2019
  11. Norman Beaton, Beaton but unbowed: an autobiography (Methuen, 1986), p. 200
  12. London Theatre Record, Volume 9, Issues 14-26, p. 1676
  13. Alex Marshall at aveleyman.com, accessed 4 February 2019
  14. ”Make a date at the Crossroads” in TV Times magazine dated 11 January 1965
  15. Listings for 26 November 1966 at bbc.co.uk/schedules, accessed 1 January 2019
  16. Countercrime at bfi.org.uk, accessed 5 January 2019
  17. Radio Times, Volume 186, issue dated 4 January 1970, p. 25
  18. Radio Times, vol. 189 (Newnes, 1970), p. 53
  19. Paul J. Niemeyer, Seeing Hardy: Film and Television Adaptations of the Fiction of Thomas Hardy (2015), p. 262
  20. William Roache, 50 Years on the Street: My Life with Ken Barlow (2010), chapter 9, “The love of a good woman”: “I had some long scenes on location with Alex Marshall, who played Yvonne”.
  21. Alex Marshall played Beryl, a clippie who catches Arthur’s eye; from Craig Walker, On the Buses: the Complete Story (2011), p. 207
  22. The House on Highbury Hill at bfi.org.uk, accessed 2 January 2019
  23. Atrocity (BBC-2 1973 with Anthony Douse and Alex Marshall) at memorabletv.com, accessed 1 January 2019
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