Are there any recordings of Joyce Grenfell, or did she write any books

�A.� The question comes from modge. Comeleon answered: 'The Beeb does a couple of audio tapes. Requests the Pleasure is autobiographic and is ISBN 0563 226 064. She wrote letters and this correspondence is on ISBN 0563 552 727 as Dear Joyce, Dear Ginnie.' Lord Panda helped with: 'Look out for the Beeb recordings of Maureen Lipman in Re:Joyce, which is difficult to find but brilliant.' Brilliant indeed. Joyce Grenfell was memorable as an accomplished English actress, comic writer, singer and performer of monologues.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Monologues

A.� You obviously haven't heard The Nursery School Teacher with the line 'George, don't do that...' But more of that later. Here's the biography that you've been waiting for. Joyce Phipps was born in Montpelier Square, London, on 10 February, 1910, daughter of an energetic socialite American, Nora Langhorne and architect Paul Phipps. She was educated in London and 'finished off' in Paris.

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Q.� Of a good English family then

A.� Good, yes. English Only a quarter. Her aunt was Nancy Astor, first woman to take up her seat as MP, and Joyce spent a lot of her younger years at the Astor family home, Cliveden. She met Reggie Grenfell in 1927 and they wed two years later. They remained married for the 50 years until her death in November 1979.

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Q.� So how did she become famous

A.� At a luncheon party at Cliveden that she met J L Garvin, editor of The Observer, and was given the job of writing the first radio critic column in the paper. Her performance debut came in 1939. After meeting radio producer Stephen Potter at a party and impersonating the speaker she had seen at a Women's Institute meeting, she was persuaded to take part in Herbert Farjeon's The Little Revue, which was a success.

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Q.� Stephen Potter. Heard of the name. Who was he

A.� An amusing fellow who wrote the Gamesmanship and Oneupmanship books. Back to Joyce. She worked for ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association - often known by servicemen as Every Night Something Awful) during the war, performing in Britain, India and the Middle East.

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Q.� Films

A.� Yes, but Joyce thought of them as second to her burgeoning stage career. Joyce appeared in 24 films, most notably the St Trinian's Ealing comedies inspired by Ronald Searle's cartoons.� She played the efficient police sergeant Ruby Gates, forever engaged to the reluctant Superintendent Kemp-Bird, better known as Bunny. Ruby, said Joyce, was a 'gawky overgrown schoolgirl type', similar to the Miss Gossage character she played in The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950). Of the movies, she said: 'I am afraid I looked on [films] as a sideline to what I thought of as my real job - writing and performing my own material on stage, radio and television.'

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Q. So what else did she do

A.� Her How to ... series started on the radio in 1943 with Stephen Potter.� They began as legitimate documentaries, but became more satirical with Grenfell. Among the characters she created were Fern Brixton, vegetarian lover of Beauty and weaver of her own clothes. Over 19 years, she and Potter developed 29 scripts, including: how to talk to children; argue; give a party; woo; be good at games; cross the Atlantic first class; and lead really full lives.

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Q.� And you say she was most famous for her monologues

A.� Oh yes.� Joyce characterised her pieces as 'light-hearted, shorthand sketches of character, suggested rather than detailed'. She said: 'It was the voice that brought the character into focus and with it instinctively came mannerisms and movement.' Her favorite character was the Vice-Chancellor's Wife in Eng Lit. The most popular with audiences was The Nursery School Teacher. ('Now I don't think we meant to put our finger in there, did we, Sidney ')

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Q.� And her books

A.� In 1976 she wrote her autobiography, Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure and read it in 15 parts on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour in 1977. Grenfell was also an avid letter-writer and her letters to her friend Virginia Graham - a friendship that lasted 62 years - have now been published. The actress Maureen Lipman, a devoted fan, read a selection of these for Radio 3 and they are now available on cassette�(ISBN 0563 552 727).

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