Elizabeth Spriggs

Jul 9 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

SHE wobbled around the jowls while her bosom quivered with splendid indignation and she was, of course, magnificently cast as Lady Gay Spanker, sporting jodphurs and whip, in the Restoration-style romp London Assurance.

But she was forever an old English aunty, who completely embodied PG Woodhouse’s brilliant line, “Aunt is calling to aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps”.

And she was cast as Aunt Agatha in series four of Jeeves and Wooster (1993), starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

There was vim, style and England through to the marrow of Elizabeth Spriggs, an actress who could switch from classical theatre to popular TV with consummate ease.

Although versatile with a formidable stage presence, Elizabeth Spriggs was never a star, but as a “character actress” she was able to win major parts when many stars had long since dimmed.

Her upbringing as the daughter of a farmer/builder in Buxton, Derbyshire, was not particularly happy. But she longed to be an actress.

After spells in repertory with the Bristol Old Viv and the Birmingham Repertory Company, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962.

Her manner was ebullient, but her dedication was strong. Of acting, she said, “You have to be open to new ideas. It’s a little like an open wound, never healing . . . It’s vital to be constantly stretched . . . I hated most of my disciplining, but it taught me more than technique.”

She performed with aplomb in many Shakespeare plays, but even higher praise came for her comic role as Lady Spanker, opposite Donald Sinden, in London Assurance.

She was almost too big for the TV screen, but was excellent as Nan in the family comedy, Shine on Harvey Moon, which ran for five series in the 1980s.

In Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, she was the God-fearing gossip, following that with Kingsley Amis’s The Old Devils and Angus Wilson’s Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.

Remaining in demand, she slipped superbly into Alan Bennet’s plays. The classic series was another berth for her essentially doughty character. She was Sairey Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit and Mrs Cadwallader in Middlemarch.

In 1995, she was Mrs Jennings in Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, and in 2001 was the Fat Lady in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

She married three times and had a daughter.

Elizabeth Spriggs, actress; born September 18, 1929, died July 2, 2008.