In 1988 she again drew on personal experience – she had cancer three times – to bring poignancy to the character of Mrs Dewey, an elderly woman dying of cancer, in Eskimos Do It (1988), part of the BBC2 Screenplay series. The previous year she had had a small but intense role as the gin-soaked mother Mrs Brent in Miss Marple: Nemesis.

I saw the "The Rattle of A Simple Man" probably in the North Atlantic in December of 1965 and still sit up when I hear or read the name of Diane Cilento. She and the movie made that big an impression on me! I've certainly been a fan of British film ever since. Percy (Stephen Tompkinson) slowly admits to Cyrenne that he still lives with his mum; is a source of fun for his friends and that he feels very uneasy with anything to do with sex. "I'm everything the French laugh at about the English," he bemoans. He is more comfortable putting on Cyrenne's apron to wash the dishes then he is with the thought of climbing into her bed.Thirty-five years after his death, Harry H Corbett has the reputation of a major stage actor whose talents went largely to waste in screen work – thanks to the huge success he enjoyed in Steptoe and Son and the typecasting that followed. This thesis was successfully dramatised in the 2008 BBC4 TV film The Curse of Steptoe (directed by Michael Samuels from a screenplay by Brian Fillis). At the start of the film, Corbett (Jason Isaacs) is Shakespeare’s Richard II in a Theatre Workshop production at Stratford East: Joan Littlewood looks forward, once ‘you’ve got the histories under your belt’, to his Macbeth and, after that, ‘the Danish ditherer’. In January 1962, Corbett was playing Henry V at the Bristol Old Vic. He took a few days off to appear in ‘The Offer’, the prophetically named BBC Comedy Playhouse pilot that led to the commissioning of the first series of Steptoe and Son. It’s plain to see from Steptoe that Harry H Corbett was very gifted (he won the 1963 equivalent of a BAFTA for Best TV Actor for playing Harold Steptoe). Because of this and because of Corbett’s legend, I always keep an eye open for further evidence of how good he was. It’s a wild goose chase – the whole point of the legend is that such evidence doesn’t exist – but I keep hoping otherwise. So I recorded Rattle of a Simple Man when it was shown on ‘Talking Pictures’ the other day. Sad to say, Harry H Corbett’s performance in the lead is awful. Rattle of a Simple Man is a 1964 British comedy-drama film directed by Muriel Box and starring Diane Cilento, Harry H. Corbett and Michael Medwin, based on the 1963 play by Charles Dyer. [2] The screenplay is about a naive man who becomes involved with a prostitute. Film and television roles rarely allowed such opportunities to stretch her acting muscles. An early attempt to switch from comedy to drama on the big screen proved unsuccessful and Liz was self-deprecating about her disastrous performance as Jo Lake in Lance Comfort’s The Painted Smile (1962). I haven't seen it since. Who knows if I'd rate it as highly the second time round? However, it's stayed in my memory all these years, especially the way Corbett transformed himself from his part in Steptoe and Son to this naïve put upon virgin.

Ladies Who Do (1964) Charwoman Mrs Cragg (Peggy Mount) retrieves a discarded cigar from the wastepaper basket of city tycoon James Ryder (Harry H…Stephen Tompkinson gives a wonderful performance as the gauche Percy, who expresses the mannerisms of a by-gone age, where a man never curses in front of a lady. He gives Percy an adolescent innocence, which only makes his admission of feeling inadequate all the more painful. The play concerns Percy, a 42-year-old Manchurian soccer fan who depicts these quaint sensibilities; not to be vulgar in front of a lady; respect one's elders, and always be loyal to the family.

Run For Your Wife (1965) Typical of the wild, sexy comedy spoofs of the mid-60s, Run For Your Wife starred Juliet Prowse and Rhonda Fleming. Riccardo (Ugo… Manchester mill worker Percy is not new to London, visiting to see his beloved United play whenever they have a fixture in the capital. This cup final weekend, however, the 30-something virgin's eyes are opened to a whole new world and lifestyle, up close and personal. Cyrenne (Michelle Collins) initially appears cold and distant towards Percy, but gradually begins to empathise with his isolation. It soon becomes obvious that her tall stories about her privileged upbringing are a shield with which she fends off a painful past of sexual abuse.I was reminded of this film today in an article from the Guardian newspaper. I saw it at the age of 13 in the local fleapit, now a listed art deco building. I'm pretty sure it came with an X certificate, but I was big for my age and got in to many restricted shows - I'd got into The Birds a few months earlier. I also seem to recall that it was the "B" film and that I rated it far higher than the "A" film. I was blown away. Ruling Class, The (1972) The 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) dies after a spot of auto-erotic asphyxiation-gone wrong). The reading of the will… Muriel Box and her sister Betty are among the subjects of Rebecca Cooke’s very interesting and enjoyable book Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties (2013). Cooke mentions Rattle of a Simple Man (‘a second-rate comedy’) only in passing but something else she writes about Muriel and her producer husband Sydney rings particularly true after you’ve watched this film: