18 ***^ Friday 16 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
FEATURES
Roth polo shirt, £
( johnsmedley.com)Grandad collar
tunic shirt, £
(cosstores.com)MAN FRIDAY
THE BRITISH MEN
SHOWING US HOW
TO DO SUMMER
IN STYLE
The tide has
changed and ourboys have nailed
it this season, says
Stephen DoigF
orgive a shred
of bitterness in
my tone here;
the dank drizzle
of Britain this
week has made
the glut of summer
Instagram posts that little
bit harder to bear.
#Blessed on the Amalfi
coast, #sunsets over
Santorini and a raft of
tanned limbs and sun hats
tilted just so... the view
across Victoria Station car
park doesn’t have quite
the same magic as
Positano. That said,
despite the Italian
backdrops and Balearic
vistas, one stylistic thread
is of note: the Brit boys
are doing it best.
This hasn’t always been
the case; the stereotype of
our preppy American or
sleek continental brothers
leading the way in
summer style, while we
Brits trail behind red-
faced and uncomfortable
in inappropriately
“done-up” suiting, or
slovenly by the pool,
exists for a reason.
We don’t do “ease”
all that easily, so
when formal
events crop up
in summer- Wimbledon,
garden parties,
weddings – the
marriage of
heat and smart
style can be a
fractious one.
But the tide has
changed. Exhibit
one: David
Beckham in his wife’s
Instagram stories in Puglia,
not slovenly by the pool but
elegant in a precise polo
shirt and cream trousers,
evoked Talented Mr
Ripley-style sprezzatura, or
British actor Riz Ahmed,
who at parties applies a
clean, unfettered approach- less Henley stripes, more
minimalist, no-collar shirts.
Cast your mind back to
that nail-biting finale at
Wimbledon, and a lot of the
action was off centre court:
the Duke of Cambridge
turned out in a striking
blazer with windowpane
check, and a matching
shirt and tie, while a few
rows along, Benedict
Cumberbatch looked
pin-sharp in a sky-blue,
single-breasted suit, and
Jude Law donned a
cream-on-cream tie and
shirt to great effect.
And why is this of note?
Because, on a rare
occasion, we Brits showed
precisely how summer
style was done. So what
pointers can we take away?
Light fabrics
Linen gets a bad rap, but
the Duke’s blazer elevates
the easy-to-crumple fabric
with a discreet check and
grown-up accessories. It
demonstrates he’s in less
“official” mode, and for
occasions like summer
weddings, it shows you’re
not in corporate attire.
Pairing a linen blazer
with smart chinos
will keep things
sharp, because
full-effect linen can
look a tad creased.Relax, but not
too much
Take a tip from Becks:
summer should be
relaxed, but doesn’t mean
you should slop about in
shorts and T-shirts. His
sharp polo shirt and
trousers with loafers is
a happy compromise.Spot on: the Duke’s
striking linen blazerLinen blazer, £
(burton.co.uk)Trousers, £29.
(zara.com)Suede Tod’s loafers, £
(tods.com)Knitted tie, £
(drakes.com)Colour combinations
There’s a clear formula
among our best-dressed
guys: varying shades of
blue, offset with white, and
a brief foray into camel.
For example, a sky-blue suit
with white shirt and blue
tie with tan shoes (never
black), or beige blazer with
dark-blue chinos. The
golden rule is that if your
trousers are white, your
jacket must be dark; at the
very lightest a chalky blue.Unless, of course...
...you’re opting for a full
pastel ensemble like JamesNorton in pale-pink Ralph
Lauren. This looks great
on certain men, but do be
wary of your colouring;
my complexion with a
candy-coloured ensemble
can make me resemble a
Victorian ghost.Pare it back
Minimalism isn’t just for
design bods in angular
glasses. Summer’s the
best time to adopt a crisp,
no-collar shirt and
flowing black trousers,
because it’s the exact time
of year you don’t want to
feel fussy and done-up.N
ext winter, should
you find yourself in
Sandwell, in the West
Midlands, look out
for Frozie Lawrence,
the salt-spreader.
“Imagine,” says its namesake, actress
and improv legend Josie Lawrence,
with a look of joy, “a gritting truck
named after me, salting the roads
around Old Hill where I grew up. It’s
better than an Oscar, isn’t it?”
She lets out her familiar soft
chuckle with just a trace of a Black
Country burr. “They’ve got one for
Dame Julie ‘Salters’ too.”
Lawrence must be one of the
UK’s funniest and hardest-working,
yet unsung thesps. She joined the
Comedy Store Players in 1985 – six
years after the Comedy Store opened
its doors for the first time, 40 years
ago – and still performs with them on
Wednesdays and Sundays.
For 10 years, she was also a regular
cast member of Channel 4’s improv
show, Whose Line is it Anyway?
with Paul Merton, Tony Slattery,
Clive Anderson and Greg Proops,
before going on to act in films and
television, including Outside Edge.
There have been innumerable
stage performances including
Mother Courage, Kate in the
RSC’s The Taming of the Shrew,
and two productions of Much
Ado About Nothing, playing- probably uniquely
- Beatrice in one and
Benedict in the other.
Most recently,
Lawrence has been
seen in the cult
Neil Gaiman series
Good Omens as
unrepentant witch
Agnes Nutter, being
burnt at the stake.
As she celebrates her birthday, improv
queen Josie Lawrence tells Victoria
Lambert how she overcame panic attacks
‘Forget 60,
I’m sexy
years old’
It’s exhausting just to think about, but
here is Lawrence, looking fresh and
pretty, 60 last month – and treating it
with insouciance.
“I’m sexy years old,” she says,
defiantly, dressed in aflowing black
top and trousers, sipping cappuccino
at the Chichester Festival Theatre,
where she is playing the redoubtable
Aunt Ella in a new production of
Oklahoma!
“I’ve always loved my birthdays,”
she says, “I think you start to know
yourself more. And 60 comes with one
brilliant thing – free bus travel.”
Her role in the well-reviewed
Oklahoma!, then, feels like a perfect
piece of casting. Ella, says Lawrence, is
“strong, tough with a sense of humour.
She takes the mick out of herself.”
Yet, there’s clearly another side
altogether to Lawrence. Years ago, she
confides, she told an interviewer she
was a “worrier”, adding “I know I’ve
got a bit of a Midlands accent, but she
put down ‘warrior’. I do come across as
strong and I know my own mind, but
people who know me know I am my
own worst critic. And I am the worst
hypochondriac.”
What does she worry about?
“Family – are they going to be all
right? About people I know – at
night. It’s hard to switch off that
part of life.” Not least as, five years
ago, she lost her mother, then
aged 92. Three years later, her
best friend died from cancer.
“Sandy was someone
I spoke to every day,”
she says. “We went
on holiday together. It
really knocked me for
six. A few months
afterwards, I went
up to Edinburgh for
a Whose Line special,
and I had a panic attack.I’d never had one before. I felt like I
was being strangled.”
She suffered another panic attack a
few weeks later on a film set. “I went
to see a counsellor. Grief can affect
you in different ways. It felt like I had
lost my anchor and floated away. I still
miss my friend and my mum, but now
I understand what grief can do.”
That sense of isolation must have
been hard for someone who came
from the tightest of close-knit,
working class families. Her father – “a
glorious man” – died 20 years ago and
Lawrence, together with her sister
Janet and brother John, supported
their mother between them.
Janet was very much the main carer,
says Lawrence, but she would go home
at weekends, staying in her childhood
bedroom, to help. “There’d be phone
calls to make about medicines and I’d
do some housework, make Sundaydinner, then drive back to London
to do the Comedy Store. Mum was
worried caring for her would affect
my work, but I didn’t mind. It was the
most important thing to be with her.
I’ve never been a huge go-away-er.”Home is east London, which she
shares with rescue cats. There is no
Mr Lawrence. “There was someone
early on but that didn’t work out,” she
says, carefully. “After that, it just didn’t
happen. And I was never one of those
women who had a need or compulsion
for children. Though I think I wouldhave made a good mum. I have lots of
godchildren.”
She’s not actively looking, either- “Oh, I’d love a chap who I didn’t
have to look after. Perhaps someone
who lives in Cornwall by the sea, a
landscape gardener who I could see
at weekends. I wouldn’t want to live
together, though. Just someone to go
to the garden centre with, really. You
want a soulmate, don’t you?”
She adds: “I’ve never considered
myself to be lonely – I have all these
marvellous friends. And I enjoy my
own company, tinkering in the garden,
collecting house and home magazines.
I think in another life I would have
been an interior decorator.”
Apart from plants, Lawrence is not
much of a shopper, but thought she
might buy a new dress for the Good
Omens premiere in May.
“They told me later I could
have asked a designer to lend me
something... Anyway, I spend
three days walking the West End,
everywhere, looking for a dress. And
when I found something that said
it was large, I got it stuck over my
head, with my arms in the air.
“Afterwards, I asked the assistant
what size a large was meant to be
and she said, 14. Well, for a 14 to be a
‘large’ is ridiculous.”
Lawrence ended up wearing a
designer jumpsuit with favourite,
old suede boots. “I’m a trousers
and comfy shoes, baggy top sort
of woman,” she admits. “I never
weigh myself.”
In Good Omens, she relished
playing an old crone. “It’s become
manipulated into a derogatory
term, yet crone used to mean wise
woman,” she says. “If someone called
me a crone now, I would take it as a
compliment.”
For Lawrence, the menopause was
“relatively easy”, bar those early days,
“when I felt like a black blanket had
been thrown over my head. I was just
so angry with myself ”.
There are still occasional flushes:
“I liken them to you becoming a
hot water bottle. It’s as if someone
uncorks me and pours hot water into
me. I’m hot from the inside out.”
For a long time, improv – like
stand-up – felt quite a blokey thing,
but Lawrence has helped redress
the balance, not least through her
own all -female improv troupe the
Glenda J Collective, named for
Glenda Jackson, one of Lawrence’s
professional heroes.
“I am a strange mix of self-doubt
and confidence,” she says. “I can
perform improv without fear but
couldn’t just get up and make an
after-dinner speech.”
When asked what roles she would
still like to be offered, Lawrence says:
“Something meaty like Martha in
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?” And
then, “I would like a crack at Iago –
he’s a proper villain.”
It’s fascinating that such a comedy
queen is attracted to these serious
roles. “Within every strong person
there is a vulnerability,” she says.
“And there is humour to be found in
every situation – even at a death bed.”Fierce and fabulous: Josie Lawrence, above, is one of the UK’s unsung thesps; top right, in Whose Line and, inset left, in Oklahoma!‘I come across as
strong, but I am my
own worst critic and
a hypochondriac’
ANDREW CROWLEY FOR THE TELEGRAPH; ALASTAIR MUIROklahoma! runs at Chichester Festival
Theatre until Sept 7. Tickets: 01243
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