The late actor took on Brecht, Falstaff and panto and will be remembered for her collaborations with Joan Littlewood
Fame is a funny thing. Barbara Windsor will obviously be remembered for the Carry On films and for playing Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders. But she was very much a theatre animal who made her stage debut at the age of 13 in Sleeping Beauty, became a pivotal member of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop and was playing in panto in her 70s. She even became a character in a play – Terry Johnson’s Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick – and one of my treasured memories is of the sound of Windsor’s hearty gurgle at seeing herself impersonated by Samantha Spiro on a National Theatre stage.
She had the priceless gift of being able to project a distinct, unique personality. That made her a natural for Littlewood, who was wary of what she called, in heavily inverted commas, “acting”. Like a lot of the young women at Theatre Workshop, Windsor was previously a performer at Winston’s nightclub in London. “They could all sing, dance, ad lib, change clothes in a matter of seconds,” wrote Littlewood, “and light up the scene.” Barbara Windsor went on lighting up the scene for the rest of her life.