Madoline Thomas (Mrs Ogden in Special Offer)

 

Often seen as housewives, grandmothers or widowers Thomas was born as Madoline Mary Price in  Abergavenny, Monmouthshire on 2nd January 1890. She came to acting late in her life deciding to try the profession at the age of 30 having previously made a living as a piano tutor. She appeared in early pioneering BBC TV productions, but the stage was always her main area of employment with work for The Royal Shakespeare Company amongst her many credits in the medium.

She made her big screen debut in the Ealing film Painted Boats AKA The Girl of the Canal (1945), a drama documentary directed by Charles Crichton. Thomas played the role of 'His Mother' in the film alongside a cast that also included Harry Fowler, Megs Jenkins and Jenny Laird. Her next screen roles were plays for the BBC which bookended the year of 1947. Shipwreck (9th January 1947) featured Thomas in the role of Mrs Davies with Thora Hird also appearing in the cast. Next was a festive production of Toad of Toad Hall (29th December 1947) in which she featured as Mother with Kenneth More as Mr Badger.

Fly Away Peter (22nd February 1948) was a BBC transmission of a popular West End play performed at the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden with Thomas being seen as Mrs Hapgood. A month later she appeared in the intriguing Triple Bill: Exit / Murder Over Draughts / The Body Was Not Disturbed (20th March 1948) which appears to be an anthology of short crime dramas squeezed into a 45 minute running time. Thomas played the role of Mrs Mayton with Richard Hurndall also in the cast. Hurndall also popped up in the next production to feature Thomas, a version of Jane Austen’s Emma (23rd May 1948), which was mounted by the BBC. Her final TV credit for 1948 was in the BBC original play A Policeman At The Door (10th November 1948). The half hour live production cast Thomas as Mrs Miles.

The Last Days of Dolwyn AKA Women of Dolwyn (1949) saw the film debut of Richard Burton in a drama set in the valleys of Wales. Boasting a strong cast of Welsh born thespians, including Thomas, the film told of the actions of villagers who are trying to stop their settlement being lost during the construction of a dam. Thomas then returned to television to appear in Choir Practice (30th July 1949), a BBC play that was also set in Wales, and also contained a plethora of Welsh actors in the production. Thomas could be seen as Auntie Mary as well as such notable professionals as Stanley Baker and Donald Houston (brother of 'The Dummy’s Glyn Houston). Blue Scar (1949) continued the trilogy of Welsh set productions that Thomas undertook during 1949. Outside of the Welsh themed productions Thomas also undertook her first regular television role during the year featuring as Maggie in the fourteen episode comedy series Family Affairs (29th October 1949 – 18th February 1950).

Thomas started the 1950s by appearing in a couple of classic British crime thrillers starting with playing a housekeeper in Blackout (1950) scripted by John Gilling and directed by Robert S Baker. This was followed by No Trace (1950), also scripted by Gilling and Baker, with Gilling undertaking director’s duties. Thomas was cast as Mrs Green with Dinah Sheridan placed as a lead actor in both productions. On television Thomas appeared in her first BBC Sunday Night Theatre production with a small nameless role in an adaptation of J B Priestley’s play 'Time and the Conways' (19th November 1950). Next was '1920 – 1929: The Turbulent Twenties' (11th June 1951), an episode of the BBC drama series The Passing Show. She also worked on two British B movies for director Vernon Sewell; the crime drama Black Widow (1951) as Mrs Sherwin (an ex-housekeeper) and the supernatural drama Ghost Ship (1952) as Mrs Morgan (a housekeeper). It was on the stage where she was most productive with a string of plays at the Royal Artillery Theatre in Woolwich throughout the year including The Mistress of Jalna, Master Crook and The Tangled Web.

Having played Aunty Mary in the BBC play Choir Practice she was asked to recreate the role for the film adaptation, Valley of Song (1953). She also appeared as Mrs Lloyd in the Ealing Films drama The Square Wing (1953) for director Basil Dearden. 1954 would see Thomas appear in the BBC play Bless This House (23rd March 1954), as well as the crime thriller film Radio Cab Murder (1954) for director Vernon Sewell. On television 'The Toby Chair' (5th September 1954) marked her second BBC Sunday Night Theatre production playing Hannah in another Welsh based drama with a heavy bias towards Welsh actors in the cast.

Next Thomas made her debut in the BBC soap opera The Grove Family playing the role of Miss Blossom in two episodes; 'Pneumonia' (24th June 1955) and 'The Duchess' (1st July 1955). She would return to the series twice more playing a different character each time. Her third appearance in a BBC Sunday Night Theatre play followed with Thomas in the supporting role of Kate in 'The Paragon' (27th November 1955) which was written by The Grove Family creators Michael and Rowland Pertwee. She concentrated on stage roles for the next year or so before her return to television with the play Jinny Morgan (30th August 1956) which cast her opposite future 'The Dummy' actor Glyn Jones. The play once again set in Wales and once more featured an all-Welsh cast. Her nationality also won her the role of Clara Novello Davies, the Welsh singer and conductor and mother to composer Ivor Novello, when she was cast in a BBC play based on his life. Ivor Novello (15th November 1956) featured Laurence Payne in the lead role of the composer. Her final screen appearance for the year came with the role of Mrs Platt in her return to the BBC soap opera The Grove Family in the episode 'Old Folks' (5th December 1956).

Her next film role, as another grandmother figure, was in the crime thriller Suspended Alibi (1957) which had an excellent cast that included Honor Blackman, Valentine Dyall and future film Quatermass Andrew Keir. Her Welsh origins continued to help her source employment with the BBC with The Prodigal Tenor (1st March 1957), a half hour comedy drama, which saw Thomas play the role of Annie in a story centred once again around a choir. Just over three weeks later she could be seen in her third, and final, role for The Grove Family as the grandly named Mrs Prescott- Grayland in two episodes; 'An Englishman’s Home' (27th March 1957) and 'Gran’s Birthday' (3rd May 1957). Thomas also clocked up more film appearances with credits in the romantic comedy Second Fiddle (1957), which was headlined by future 'The Dummy' star Thorley Walters, and in crime drama Rogue’s Yarn (1957) for director Vernon Sewell again.

During July and August she could be seen by audiences tuning into a BBC costume drama adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Villette (17th July – 21st August 1957) in the role of Goton. The day before Villette ended BBC audiences could also see Thomas in a cameo appearance as a kindly lady in the one off comedy Any Old Iron? (20th August 1957). Just over a week later she was back on the BBC with her fourth and final BBC Sunday Night Theatre role. Thomas was cast as Nan Cecil in 'Cuckoo' (1st September 1957) which also featured Beasts alumni Peter Halliday in the cast.

Thomas completed three more single plays for the BBC during 1958; Gentlemen at Twilight (14th January 1958), She Too Was Young (6th March 1958) and A Shaft of Light (9th October 1958). She also had a role as Mrs Evans in an episode of Pride and Prejudice (14th February 1958) and appeared as Sarah Price in half hour play The Music Master (12th June 1958). She then made her first appearance in a play not produced by the BBC when she appeared as Aunt Clara in the ITV Television Playhouse episode 'Miss Em' (11th July 1958). Saturday Playhouse was a BBC anthology series of dramatizations of plays which ran between 1958 and 1961 and Thomas would feature in four productions starting with 'A Young Affair' (30th August 1958).

1959 would see her complete an episode of The Flying Doctor and make her second appearance in a Saturday Playhouse production with 'Murder on the Agenda' (14th February 1959). She also appeared as Mrs Jones in 'Detective Story' (16th May 1959), an episode of the BBC drama series The Wanderer. The rest of her work for the year was in the area of single plays and included Barbed Wire and Bracken (6th January 1959), Fly Away Peter (30th June 1959) and The Food of Love (29th September 1959). Amongst all this she also made her second ITV Television Playhouse appearance with 'One A Penny, Two A Penny' (28th August 1959). Thomas was reunited with Glyn Houston when she was cast in the role of Mrs Nicholas in two episodes of a BBC dramatization of How Green Was My Valley during February. This was followed by another couple of roles as a Welsh natives - Mrs Evans the Milk in the ITV Play of the Week 'The Patchwork Quilt' (19th July 1960) and Mrs Morgan in the Saturday Playhouse production 'Home and the Heart' (12th March 1960). Her fourth, and last, Saturday Playhouse role, was as Annie in 'The Batchelor Brothers' (22nd October 1960). This would be her last screen appearance for a few years as Thomas again concentrated on her theatre work including the role of Mrs Boyle in Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap during 1960 and 1961 and several seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The RSC work included a season at the Aldwych theatre in productions of Christopher Fry’s Curtmantle followed by a production of The Devils later during October 1962. She returned to television with a staging of one of her RSC productions for the BBC, The Comedy of Errors (1st January 1964), which allowed her to bring her interpretation of the character Aemillia to a mass audience.

More theatre work for the RSC kept her away from the screen for the rest of 1964 and part of 1965. She returned to television the BBC’s filmed theatre productions of Shakespeare’s historical plays under the title of The War of the Roses. Thomas would feature in four of the eleven episode series as the Duchess of York between April and July 1969. As a new decade dawned Thomas continued with roles mainly in one off plays or dramas, but her main employment began to be from various ITV franchises rather than the BBC. Work started with 'Under the Carpet' (14th August 1970), an episode of Granada’s anthology series Confession, playing Auntie Blodwen. She was then engaged to play the character Emma in a trilogy of plays for the ITV Sunday Night Theatre series which went out under the banner title of The Exiles with each episode devoted to a single character – 'Jennie' (10th October 1970), 'Emma' (17th October 1970) and 'Zo' (24th October 1970). The following year ITV Sunday Night Theatre attempted another trilogy of plays under the banner name of Fly on the Wall and Thomas featured in all three playing the role of granny. Thomas also appeared as Mrs Ewell, the senile mother of teacher Doris Ewell, in the Please Sir! episode 'Sibley, Mumsie, Dodo and Georgie' (27th November 1971). The early 1970s would also see Thomas make her final feature film appearances with the productions Something to Hide (1972) in a cameo as an old lady, and in the under-powered horror Burke and Hare (1972) playing Mary Docherty. 

On television she undertook another clutch of guest roles; Mrs Haddon in The Befrienders episode 'Lots of Friends in the Big City' (1st April 1972), Mrs Cobb in 'Miss Mouse' (25th August 1972) - an episode of the horror / thriller anthology series The Frighteners - and Mrs Bennett in the Dixon of Dock Green story 'Bust Up' (25th November 1972). Next was an episode of themed anthology programme Love Story playing Miss Farmer in 'Forsaking All Others' (13th February 1973) followed by the Late Night Theatre production 'The Eagle Has Landed' (4th April 1973) with Thomas playing another grandmother. She also featured in the Play for Today production 'Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont' (18th October 1973) playing the role of Aunty Bunny.

Despite now being in her 80s Thomas was still very active on stage. She played the role of Nurse in a production of Sleeping Beauty at York Royal Theatre during December 1973 and January 1974 with a surprise birthday party thrown for her by the cast and crew to mark her 84th birthday. During March 1974 could be seen in Words of Advice, the first play by Fay Weldon, at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond. Television work during 1974 saw her appear as Mrs Travers in two episodes of the police drama New Scotland Yard; 'Death by Misadventure' (27th April 1974) and 'For All Their Faults' (4th May 1974). She also had a small role as a nanny in the Justice instalment 'Decisions, Decisions' (2nd August 1974) and appeared as a retired schoolteacher, Millicent Conway, who stands accused of burning a house down in the Crown Court case 'Arson' (4th – 6th December 1974).

Apart from theatre commitments she was involved in a couple of television comedy productions during 1975 with guest spots in the sitcom My Brother’s Keeper (19th October 1975) and The Dick Emery Christmas Special (24th December 1975). People watching the Beasts story 'Special Offer' at the time may have recognised Thomas from her other roles during the year which included two episodes of ATV’s period drama Clayhanger as Lucy Watchett, a couple of episodes of Coronation Street (19th July and 2nd August 1976) as Bertha Lumley or as Grandmother Dickens in 'Blacking' (12th October 1976), an episode of the biographical drama Dickens of London which featured Roy Dotrice as Charles Dickens.

Post-Beasts TV credits include Miss Amelia Blake in the Just William episode 'It All Began With A Typewriter' (27th November 1977) and Mrs Carr in an Angels storyline (12th and 21st November 1979) which also included her 'Special Offer' colleague Shirley Cheriton as the regular character Katy Betts. 1980 was a busy year for Thomas starting with a small role as “woman at the bank” in an episode of the sitcom Keep It In The Family – 'The Non-Mechanical Man' (28th January 1980). Next was a much more substantial role as retired music hall singer Lettie Ross who thinks she witnesses a murder in a nearby empty house in the Shoestring episode 'Room With A View' (5th October 1980) which began the second season of the detective series.

She was the regular character Mrs Ratcliffe during the second series of Hywel Bennett’s signature role Shelley which was transmitted between April and May 1980. The character returned for Christmas with Shelley (22nd December 1980). Also seen during the year’s Christmas period was an episode of The Two Ronnies (13th December 1980) which featured Thomas as shop customer in one of the comedy sketches. 1981 would bring another burst of activity for Thomas and it would be her most prolific before the credits became more irregular. She appeared as a tea room lady in episode five of the BBC’s adaptation of D H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (11th February 1981) and was Amy in 'The Wallet' (19th March 1981), an episode of the sitcom The Incredible Mr Tanner. She guest starred as Mrs Downey in the When the Boat Comes In instalment 'Roll of Honour' (21st April 1981) and was cast as Gloria Hayworth in 'Dress Optional' (27th July 1981), an episode of the sitcom Sorry I’m A Stranger Here Myself. Her final role of the year was as Nanny in the Play for Today production 'Country' (20th October 1981) which also featured Leo McKern, Wendy Hillier and James Fox.

Her final stage appearance came with a production of Uncle Vanya at the National Theatre in November and October 1982. She then retired from stage roles at the age of 92. Her penultimate television appearance was as an old lady in the Juliet Bravo episode 'Who’s Your Friend?' (1st October 1983). Her final role, at the grand age of 96 was as Em, a resident of the old people’s home that Victor (Denholm Elliott) is forced to move into, in the single drama production Past Caring (2nd November 1986). Thomas died on 30th December 1989, just three days off her 100th birthday, in Weston-super-mare, Somerset.