This month Amanda Barrie invites us to have a look round her tastefully decorated dressing room....
One of the most important items in Amanda's room is her television set. "I watch anything, especially the racing," she confides. "This is a very lucky dressing room for betting from, but if the racing isn't on then I'll watch other sports or old films. Sometimes I turn the radio and the TV on at the same time in case I miss anything. I also follow the news bulletins obsessively and switch from station to station to catch them.
"A lot of the times I fall asleep in here too," she admits. The room is certainly comfortable enough. There are two
antique tables which are actually coffin stools, the smaller one adorned with a lamp from Covent Garden market. The terracotta patterned
rug on the floor and cushions on the armchair are Moroccan, and the chair is covered with a linen sheet.
"It's a bedsheet which has been hand-stitched by nuns," explains Amanda. "All my curtains at home are
made from them too."
There is a photograph of Amanda's Covent Garden flat above her dressing table, along with various
prints. "I prefer prints, because I don't like lots and lots of photographs in rooms," Amanda
says. "I've no idea why."
The photographs she does have on display include a photo of her mum with her dog Katie Cupcake,
Billy Fury, a snap of the famous racehorse Red Rum, and pictures of Gertrude Lawrence and Roy
Hattersly. "I've had the picture of Gertie ever since I started in the theatre because I had
an obsession with her. I partly chose the name Amanda because of her," she explains. "Amanda was
her favourite name, and the character she played in Private Lives. I have a photo of Roy
Hattersly because he was very nice about the character of Alma once, and I've kept the photo
with me ever since because I'm superstitious.
"I also have a model of the Virgin Mary which I rescued from downstairs where it was in a window with
a lot of kitsch ornaments. I'm not a Catholic but I love collecting religious icons."
Amanda also has a wooden artist's model on her dressing table. "I draw all the time and use
paints and charcoals," she says. "I've always doodled and my scripts are covered in drawings. A lot
of my friends are artists." Also on the walls are posters by Matisse and Cezanne and propped up against
the wall is part of a wooden gypsy painting.
"When I'm not watching TV I draw, read (The Sporting Life and art books), answer my fan mail and make endless phone calls," Amanda reveals. "Sometimes I will eat lunch here as well. When I had a different dressing room on the top floor I could never make myself go into it, adn would sit in the Green Room instead. Now i've moved to this one, though, I'm here all the time."
