Though Ian McKellen gave his Hamlet at the age of 82, older women rarely get the chance to play young characters. But with Imelda Staunton in Hello Dolly and Geraldine James as Rosalind, are things finally changing?
Geraldine James was on her way to play a grandmother in the BBC drama This Town when her agent messaged. “I was on the train to Birmingham,” remembers the 74-year-old. “And I got a text that said, ‘The RSC have offered you Rosalind at Stratford’ – you know, As You Like It. I said, ‘Well that’s insane. What on earth are they talking about?’”
Rosalind is one of the most beloved of Shakespeare’s female protagonists. She is also a young woman, possibly a teenager, which is what made James’s starring role in last year’s production so surprising. “I remember, in the middle of rehearsals, thinking, ‘How are an audience going to relate to this? What’s a teenager going to make of a 70-year-old skipping about pretending to be 20?’”
