An early morning extra with my nightcap after I'd  browsed through some diary entries for March 2007.  Neil North who played Ronnie Winslow in the 1948 film version died on March 9 aged 75 years.   His career as an actor faded rather quickly and he became an antiques dealer in America where he called himself Lord North.  However, he was back in this country for the 1999 remake of 'The Winslow Boy' and the end credits show that he played the first lord of the admiralty.   He had a further role as one of the ballet school examining committee in "Billy Elliot" (2000).

However, I return to Robert Donat as Sir Robt Morton, QC and MP in the 1948 film version and I doubt whether any other actor, except Donat and Roger Livesey, delivered a Parliamentary oration which ended, "LET  RIGHT  BE  DONE" in ringing stentorian tones.      The centenary of the Winslow boy case is due 1912/1913 and it seems probable that a documentary and TV production of the play is likely to follow, providing coverage of the Olympics doesn't swallow up the budget.

Thank you, Pim.   Even in my dotage, all this additional information is manna to me.

Peter Barkworth taught the craft of technique for several years at RADA; a man of real wit and perception.   In turn, I suspect that we behaved ungraciously as I was a student there in the transitional years when we were preoccupied with Stanislavsky's,An Actor Prepares,  and the flowering years of 'The Method' so anything related to technique was always a box of tricks which made it a dirty word.   Silly buglers!   How on earth did we hope to get through a long run in a play until we realised that technique is the wings which get you off the ground when you turn up for a performance and don't feel like it?    At the time, Peter had just done several hundred performances in 'Roar Like a Dove' at the Phoenix Theatre; made a name for himself with outstanding notices for his role in a film, 'A Touch of Larceny' with James Mason.   How proud he was when he told us that after a decade of hard struggle, he now had the money for a deposit on a house in Flask Walk, Hampstead - very posh and desirable.   There was a good second hand bookshop, nearby, and I used to get many of my low priced, review copies there.    If Peter saw me, we always ended up having coffee at his pad.  (Very 1960s terminology).    Such a dear man; so shrewd and funny.   Indeed, I found one of his letters, recently, as he felt disheartened by poor business on the pre-London tour of "The Winslow Boy" and he gave me such a welcome when I went backstage to see him at Darlington.   TV work also dried-up in the mid 90s after a distinguished career which left him bemused and slightly bitter but he was never a wimp.   He was highly respected as a man and actor.  He also wrote several books on stage technique and advice to a young actor which were always available at Foyles for at least a decade.   I bet that you'll soon be googling!

Re Elaine Stritch's one-woman show, "At Liberty", her anecdote about young Brandon de Wilde, banging on doors backstage, shouting "Time to go; Time to Go" at the 'beginner's call"; you may remember him as the young boy in George Steven's "Shane" (1953) with his voice echoing through the valleys as the wounded Shane (Alan Ladd) rode into the sunset.   As a teenager, he also played the young brother to Paul Newman's "Hud"  -  due to be shown as a tribute to the great star, Film 4, Sunday, 12 October. 

Referring back to the Powell/Pressburger films Moviemail have a boxed set of 11 dvds:-  The Tales of Hoffman (1951), Black Narcissus (1946), A Matter of Life & Death (1946), The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I am Going (1945), 49th Parallel (1941), The Battle of the River Plate (1956), Ill Met By Moonlight (1957), They're A Weird Mob (1966) and The Red Shoes (1948) for £26.99 (RRP £59.99) + free delivery