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Turn Back the Clock: Her Best Monologues and Songs
To her fans, the late Joyce Grenfell needs no recommendation and this book contains a collection of some of her sketches and songs. Included in this book are "The Women's Institute Lecturer", "Nursery School Sketches" and "Opera Interval".
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Joyce Grenfell
35 books8 followersJoyce Irene Grenfell, OBE (née Phipps; 10 February 1910 – 30 November 1979) was an English actress, comedienne and singer-songwriter.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 17, 2023
Possibly best-known these days as the “golly-gosh”-type character actress in many English comedies of the 50s, Joyce Grenfell’s grounding was on stage, performing her own songs and monologues in various successful theatre revues, and later in her own one-woman shows and on television. This book is a collection of Joyce’s “Best Songs and Monologues”, around 90 of them, covering 1939 to 1971.
An undeniable influence on Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood, Joyce’s monologues range from society hostess speeches to a prospective bride having cold feet, to a grandmother flying to America to meet her black daughter-in-law for the first time and all points in between. They are golden slices of life, and even if she can sometimes come across as slightly patronising to her more working-class characters, she certainly saves her sharpest satire for the upper classes, often in the very last line of a piece.
Joyce’s songs and poems tend towards the overly sentimental, so it’s certainly the monologues which have aged best here, and I’d love to see them performed again, though Maureen Lipman did a great job of being the preeminent keeper of Joyce’s flame in the 80s and 90s. You’ll find yourself chucking quietly to yourself throughout this anthology rather than erupting in belly laughs, but this is gilt-edged writing from a past era in a genre no-one is practising today, which is a real shame.
An undeniable influence on Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood, Joyce’s monologues range from society hostess speeches to a prospective bride having cold feet, to a grandmother flying to America to meet her black daughter-in-law for the first time and all points in between. They are golden slices of life, and even if she can sometimes come across as slightly patronising to her more working-class characters, she certainly saves her sharpest satire for the upper classes, often in the very last line of a piece.
Joyce’s songs and poems tend towards the overly sentimental, so it’s certainly the monologues which have aged best here, and I’d love to see them performed again, though Maureen Lipman did a great job of being the preeminent keeper of Joyce’s flame in the 80s and 90s. You’ll find yourself chucking quietly to yourself throughout this anthology rather than erupting in belly laughs, but this is gilt-edged writing from a past era in a genre no-one is practising today, which is a real shame.
January 2, 2020
Wonderful monologues
August 13, 2025
good fun
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews