Liz Smith makes eccentric supporting characters worth listening to, with a straight face and a carefully timed line. We value the precision of her comedy, even when the parts settle for making her the dotty old woman.
Fi1m perspective
Liz Smith's straight face is particularly useful when the subject is terrible cooking. As Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994), she makes unpromising ideas about food sound perfectly reasonable. We laughed because her matter-of-fact delivery gives no sign that anything is wrong with them. There is no need to make the character aware that she is funny. That restraint is what we rate in Smith: she gives a small comic part enough conviction to hold its place in an ensemble.
Her breakthrough came as Pat's mother in Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments (1971), with improvised drama preceding the sitcoms that brought her wider recognition. Supporting work through the 1970s and 1980s included Mother in A Private Function (1984), a part that made use of her expressive face and comic timing. The move towards familiar television households and parish meetings brought The Vicar of Dibley and then The Royle Family (1998). Working with writer and actor Caroline Aherne on the latter, Smith played the family matriarch Norma 'Nana' Speakman.
Her voice role as Mrs Mulch in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) takes her into another affectionate ensemble comedy. Nick Park and Steve Box make the smallest gestures count, although the plot stretches to fill a feature. We recommend it warmly. For Smith herself, though, there is an obvious caveat: the face that does so much of her comic work is unavailable.
The recurring dotty-old-woman parts do become a limitation: even good timing cannot give a character much to do if eccentricity is her only purpose. We value Smith most when there are other actors to answer her, and a household or parish to make sense of her oddness. The Vicar of Dibley sometimes repeats its jokes, but Dawn French's warmth makes that company worth staying with. Begin there, if familiar village comedy is likely to be a pleasure rather than a test.
Biography
Liz Smith, born Betty Gleadle on 11 December 1921 in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, was an English actress. She died on 24 December 2016. She appeared as Norma 'Nana' Speakman in the BBC sitcom The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2006) and voiced Mrs Mulch in the film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Smith trained briefly as an actor in her youth but worked in other jobs before her first substantial screen role in Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments (1971). She became known for character parts in BBC series including Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared (1975–1979), Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–1996) and roles in 2point4 Children (1991–1999). Film credits include A Private Function (1984), for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Secrets & Lies (1996), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and City of Ember (2008). She was appointed MBE in 2009.
