Kate O'Mara to play her idol

When the legendary Marlene Dietrich performed her world famous one woman show in Birmingham in the early 1970s a young actress called Kate O’Mara sat enraptured in the audience.

More than 30 years later Kate is playing her idol in a new show entitled Lunch with Marlene and Noel, coming to Windsor’s Theatre Royal next week.

She still remembers every detail of that magic Birmingham show. Kate said: “I had been invited to see Marlene by a theatre critic I knew. She just looked stunning, a one-off. We all gave her a standing ovation. At the end the critic said he had access to her suite at the Albany Hotel, she had the whole top floor of course. He wondered would I like to go?

“I was in the same room as her but there were so many people. I managed to raise my hand and say ‘I think you are fabulous’ and she smiled in my direction, so I can’t say I really met her. I did get an LP record of her concert and played it non-stop to remind myself of that night.”

In the years that followed Kate combined a successful television career in shows like Howard’s Way and Dynasty with a rich and varied theatrical one.

She has always preferred the stage, using the fame and money television can bring to subsidise her life in the theatre – often as an actor manager with her own company. Her roles range from Shakespeare’s Cleopatra to Coward’s Blithe Spirit.

It was while appearing in Blithe Spirit – dressed in 1930s style to play Noel Coward’s famous ghost – that a fellow actress told her she looked just like Marlene Dietrich. Now she is finally playing her in the show Lunch with Marlene and Noel.

The first half of the show is a play, as an ageing Marlene and Noel share lunch and reminisce about their lives and careers. Then the second half becomes a musical as the legendary duo – played by Kate and Frank Barrie recreate famous musical numbers associated with them, from Lili Marlene and Naughty Lola to London Pride and Mad About the Boy.

Kate is delighted to get the chance to wear the famous sequinned dress that encased Marlene in her latest years. Her admiration for the woman she is now playing remains undiminished.

She said: “She was an extraordinary women, a tough German seduced by Hollywood. Hitler loved here and wanted her to come back but she stayed in America, entertaining the troops in the most dangerous locations.

“She could have been killed easily and by then Hitler would have been delighted if she was. What a decision to have to make, to fight against your own country even when you know it is in the wrong, I don’t think I could do it.

“She went back to Germany after the war and had a terrible time, they tried to disrupt her shows. But she was determined to return on her own terms and she did.”

Lunch with Marlene and Noel runs at Windsor’s Theatre Royal from Monday, September 21 until Saturday, September 26.