7.2 /10 1 Votes7.2
Originally published 1982 | 3.6/5 Goodreads Media type Print (Hardback) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Human Voices, The Beginning of Spring, The Gate of Angels, The Knox Brothers: Edmund, The means of escape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
At Freddie's is a novel by British author Penelope Fitzgerald. It concerns the run-down, barely viable Temple Stage School, an acting school for children, known as "Freddie's", after its headmistress Frieda "Freddie" Wentworth.
Contents
The children regularly perform as fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Arthur in King John, and the Lost Boys in Peter Pan.
Freddie is relentless in her commitment to traditional stage acting, and continually rejects training for film, television, and commercials.
At Freddie's was her second novel to be published in the US, although some sources describe at as her first such.
Background
Fitzgerald had taught at Italia Conti stage school, at Avondale House in Clapham, Greater London, in the years 1960–62, living impoverished. Her teaching duties included classes and backstage tutoring. The school's most famous graduate was Noël Coward.
In contrast, the novel is set in 1963. The Italia Conti, named for its founder, was during Fitzgerald's time, run by Ruth Conti, Italia's niece. Unlike Freddie's, Conti was open to film and television acting.
Character summary
Reception
It is well mannered, well written and instantly forgettable.
Like a Hirschfeld caricature, "At Freddie's" aims solely to delineate, to depict. But it does that admirably well.
Critical review
The novel has a chapter of its own in Peter Wolfe Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald and Hermione Lee Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life.
Stage adaptation
A stage adaptation of the novel by David Nicholls has been commissioned for The Old Vic in London, and is currently in development. BBC Radio broadcast in 2016 a dramatization, with Margaret Tyzack playing Freddie.