Judy Parfitt

Judy Parfitt speaks difficult dialogue clearly, with the confidence of someone accustomed to being listened to. It makes her well suited to women who expect obedience, including Mrs Clennam in Little Dorrit (2008). She is one of the reasons Andrew Davies’s Dickens adaptation remains absorbing when its crowded story becomes cumbersome. We enjoyed her performance because she made Mrs Clennam worth following for her own sake, rather than merely as someone the leads must contend with. That matters in a programme with so many people competing for attention.

Period television made frequent use of that authority: Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice (1980), then Mildred Layton in The Jewel in the Crown (1984). Her classical stage background helps explain the precision, particularly when the language is formal or unfamiliar. Cinema offered further supporting work, including Vera Donovan opposite Kathy Bates in Dolores Claiborne (1995) and Maria Thins in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003). The risk in such a career is being asked to supply a formidable woman before being given anything else to play.

In Little Dorrit, she also benefits from an ensemble that allows different kinds of acting. Tom Courtenay’s Mr Dorrit supplies another reason to follow the supporting cast, while Claire Foy and Matthew Macfadyen remain strong leads. Parfitt does not have to dominate the programme to be valuable in it. Her presence gives us something to enjoy through the slower stretches, though the opening still asks too much patience and the ending is hurried.

Her later work has also made room for eccentric elderly characters, including Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife (2012). That offers something beyond the familiar casting of Parfitt as a woman whose position entitles her to give orders. We would welcome more parts that put her precise delivery to uses beyond asserting social rank. Start with Little Dorrit, and give its opening time to settle.