That’s Entertainment

Published Wednesday 2 January 2008 at 10:05 by Mark Shenton

If the Cambridge University Press dictionary defines a game old bird as an older woman who is energetic and willing to do risky things, then Thelma Ruby is the living embodiment of one.

From playing such roles as Golde to Topol’s Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof to Goneril to Michael Hordern’s King Lear (directed by Jonathan Miller), she has had a varied and prolific career that has stretched across some six decades. Now, as she reaches her (anec)dotage, she’s still determined to keep going, and a one-woman show is, of course, the time-honoured way to do it to honour the time she’s done in the theatre.

But while the brief autobiographical canter that she has brought to Hampstead’s New End shows off her customary wit and warmth, she’s also just too nice. That may seem an odd criticism in a business that is full of egos that aren’t, but next to the abrasive astringency that the likes of fellow octogenarians Elaine Stritch and Bea Arthur demonstrated when they brought their own one-woman revues to the West End, this show lacks drama and shape.

Instead, Ruby’s show is a living testament to a more considerable offstage achievement - a life well lived. She pays moving tribute to her late husband, director Peter Frye, whom she met late into her life, and if Golde in Fiddler proved to be her biggest West End role, it was another Golda that provided a signature one, when played Golda Meir in a South African production of William Gibson’s play about the Israeli premier. Working with Frye, she subsequently adapted it to tour as a two-person show. The extracts she performs from that prove that she is still a considerable and potent actress.