Polly Adams
Encyclopedia
Polly Adams is an English actress best known for her work on the stage both in England and in the United States, and for her portrayal of Mrs. Brown on the television series Just William
. She made her Broadway
debut in the critically acclaimed 1975 revival of London Assurance
as Grace Harkaway. For her portrayal she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award
. Her other Broadway credits include Zalmen or The Madness of God and Bedroom Farce
.
Adams has also appeared in several productions on the London Stage
appearing at such theatres as the Old Vic
, the Oxford Stage Company, the Hampstead Theatre
, the Royal National Theatre
, the Greenwich Theatre
, the Haymarket Theatre
, the Lyric Hammersmith
, the Globe Theatre
, the Queen’s Theatre, the Piccadilly Theatre
, the Savoy Theatre
, and the Royal Shakespeare Company
among others. Her theatre credits include Ida in Americans, The Good Samaritan, Lady Lister in The Chiltern Hundreds
with Bill Kenwright
, Time and the Conways
, A Month in the Country
, Pygmalion
, Tis Pity She’s a Whore, A Small Family Business
, Tons of Money
, Plunder, The Philanderer
, Engaged
, Troilus and Cressida and Don Juan Comes Home from the War, The Government Inspector, Benefactors
, The Real Thing
, Present Laughter
, The Importance of Being Earnest
, Hay Fever
, The Merchant of Venice
, Private Lives
, The Complaisant Lover, and Relatively Speaking
among several others.
Adams has also worked on television in the United Kingdom, appearing in programmes including The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
, Element of Doubt
, Just William
, A Dark Adapted Eye, The Cinder Path
, Blisters, Inspector Alleyn, Bonjour la Classe
, The Camomile Lawn
, Sob Sisters, Executive Stress
, The Murder at the Vicarage
, Faint-Hearted Feminist, Winter Sunshine, Goodbye Darling, Tribute to the Lady, Loyalties, Upstairs, Downstairs
, Only the Other Day, The First Churchills
, The Spoils of Poynton
, Pride and Prejudice
, and Compact and Sea Song. Her film credits include Kisna and A Woman of the North.
Adams' daughter, Susannah Harker
, is also a successful actress. Adams portrayed Jane Bennet in the 1967 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Harker played the same role in the 1995 adaptation
.
She currently lives in the small village of Itchenor
, just a few miles from her city of birth (Chichester).
Just William (1990s TV series)
Just William was a BBC television series based on the Just William series of books written by Richmal Crompton. It ran for two series from 1994 to 1995.-Cast:*Oliver Rokison as William*Jonathan Hirst as Ginger*Stephen Willmott as Henry...
. She made her Broadway
The Broadway Theatre
The Broadway Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1681 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan....
debut in the critically acclaimed 1975 revival of London Assurance
London Assurance
London Assurance is a five-act comedy by Dion Boucicault. It was the second play that he wrote, but his first to be produced. Its first production, from March 4, 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden was Boucicault's first major success...
as Grace Harkaway. For her portrayal she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
. Her other Broadway credits include Zalmen or The Madness of God and Bedroom Farce
Bedroom farce
A bedroom farce or sex farce is a type of light comedy, centered on the sexual pairings and recombinations of characters as they move through improbable plots and slamming doors...
.
Adams has also appeared in several productions on the London Stage
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
appearing at such theatres as the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
, the Oxford Stage Company, the Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
, the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, the Greenwich Theatre
Greenwich Theatre
The Greenwich Theatre is a local theatre located in Croom's Hill close to the centre of Greenwich in south-east London.-Building history:The building was originally a music hall created in 1855 as part of the neighbouring Rose and Crown public house, but the Rose and Crown Music Hall was...
, the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
, the Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
, the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
, the Queen’s Theatre, the Piccadilly Theatre
Piccadilly Theatre
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at 16 Denman Street, behind Piccadilly Circus and adjacent to the Regent Palace Hotel, in the City of Westminster, England.-Early years:Built by Bertie Crewe and Edward A...
, the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
, and the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
among others. Her theatre credits include Ida in Americans, The Good Samaritan, Lady Lister in The Chiltern Hundreds
The Chiltern Hundreds (play)
The Chiltern Hundreds is a 1947 stage comedy by William Douglas-Home. It was adapted as a film in 1949, under the same title. Revivals of the play have included a 1999 production at the Vaudeville Theatre starring Edward Fox.-Sources:...
with Bill Kenwright
Bill Kenwright
Bill Kenwright CBE is a leading West End theatre producer and film producer.He is also the Chairman of Everton Football Club, an English professional football club from the city of Liverpool....
, Time and the Conways
Time and the Conways
Time and the Conways is a British play written by J. B. Priestley in 1937 illustrating J. W. Dunne's Theory Of Time through the experience of a moneyed Yorkshire family, the Conways, over a period of nineteen years from 1919 to 1937...
, A Month in the Country
A Month in the Country (play)
A Month in the Country is a comedy in five acts by Ivan Turgenev. It was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and was first published in 1855...
, Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
, Tis Pity She’s a Whore, A Small Family Business
A Small Family Business
A Small Family Business is a play by Alan Ayckbourn, based around the business of the title and dealing with the Thatcherism of the time. It premiered at the Olivier stage of the Royal National Theatre on 20 May 1987, where it won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play for that year...
, Tons of Money
Tons of Money (play)
Tons of Money is a farcical play by British writers Will Evans and Arthur Valentine. which was first performed in 1922. It was the first of the long-running Aldwych Farces, co-produced by Tom Walls and Leslie Henson and starred Henson as Aubrey Allington...
, Plunder, The Philanderer
The Philanderer
The Philanderer is a play by George Bernard Shaw.It was written in 1893 but the strict British Censorship laws at the time meant that it was not produced on stage until 1902....
, Engaged
Engaged (play)
Engaged is a three-act farcical comic play by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Haymarket Theatre on 3 October 1877, the same year as The Sorcerer, one of Gilbert's comic operas written with Arthur Sullivan, which was soon followed by the collaborators' great success in H.M.S. Pinafore...
, Troilus and Cressida and Don Juan Comes Home from the War, The Government Inspector, Benefactors
Benefactors (play)
Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila. David is attempting to build some new homes to replace the slum housing of Basuto Road and is gradually...
, The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
, Present Laughter
Present Laughter
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
, The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
, Hay Fever
Hay Fever
Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...
, The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
, Private Lives
Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
, The Complaisant Lover, and Relatively Speaking
Relatively Speaking
Relatively Speaking was a game show that aired in syndication from September 5, 1988 to June 23, 1989. The series was hosted by comedian John Byner, with John Harlan announcing....
among several others.
Adams has also worked on television in the United Kingdom, appearing in programmes including The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
The Ruth Rendell Mysteries is a British television series made by TVS and Meridian Television for ITV between 1987 and 2000.-Description:The series comprises adaptations of the works of Ruth Rendell, many of which are based on her extensive range of short stories...
, Element of Doubt
Element of Doubt
Element of Doubt is a 1996 British thriller film directed by Christopher Morahan and starring Gina McKee and Michael Jayston. A seemingly perfect couple begin to dispute when they should have children and their relationship rapidly deterioates until she is afriad he might kill her.-Cast:* Nigel...
, Just William
Just William
Just William is the first book of children's short stories about the young school boy William Brown, written by Richmal Crompton, and published in 1922. The book was the first in the series of William Brown books which was the basis for numerous television series, films and radio adaptations...
, A Dark Adapted Eye, The Cinder Path
The Cinder Path
The Cinder Path is a 1972 novel by Catherine Cookson and a 1994 film directed by Simon Langton and based on the novel.-Plot introduction:In the English countryside of the early 20th Century the working-class main protagonist must deal with a cruel and tyrannical father and later with a romantic...
, Blisters, Inspector Alleyn, Bonjour la Classe
Bonjour la Classe
Bonjour la Classe is a British television comedy series broadcast on BBC1 in 1993. Created and written by Paul Smith and Terry Kyan, the series centered on Laurence Didcott, a new French teacher at prestigious Mansion School. Didcott discovers a prevailing attitude at Mansion, among staff,...
, The Camomile Lawn
The Camomile Lawn
The Camomile Lawn is a novel by Mary Wesley about the lives of Richard and Helena Cuthbertson and their five nieces and nephews; Calypso, Walter, Polly, Oliver and Sophy. The title refers to a fragrant camomile lawn stretching down to the Cornish cliffs in the garden of the main characters' aunt's...
, Sob Sisters, Executive Stress
Executive Stress
Executive Stress is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1986 to 1988. Produced by Thames Television, it first aired on 20 October 1986. After three series, the last episode aired on 27 December 1988....
, The Murder at the Vicarage
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Murder at the Vicarage is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1930 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...
, Faint-Hearted Feminist, Winter Sunshine, Goodbye Darling, Tribute to the Lady, Loyalties, Upstairs, Downstairs
Upstairs, Downstairs
Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series originally produced by London Weekend Television and revived by the BBC. It ran on ITV in 68 episodes divided into five series from 1971 to 1975, and a sixth series shown on the BBC on three consecutive nights, 26–28 December 2010.Set in a...
, Only the Other Day, The First Churchills
The First Churchills
The First Churchills was a BBC serial from 1969 about the life of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and his wife, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough...
, The Spoils of Poynton
The Spoils of Poynton
The Spoils of Poynton is a novel by Henry James, first published under the title The Old Things as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1896 and then as a book in 1897. This half-length novel describes the struggle between Mrs. Gereth, a widow of impeccable taste and iron will, and her son Owen over...
, Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
, and Compact and Sea Song. Her film credits include Kisna and A Woman of the North.
Adams' daughter, Susannah Harker
Susannah Harker
Susannah Harker is an English film, television, and theatre actor. She is the daughter of English actress Polly Adams and actor Richard Owens, and the great-niece of Gordon Adams. She was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award in 1990 for her role as Mattie Storin in House of Cards...
, is also a successful actress. Adams portrayed Jane Bennet in the 1967 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Harker played the same role in the 1995 adaptation
Pride and Prejudice (1995 TV serial)
Pride and Prejudice is a six-episode 1995 British television drama, adapted by Andrew Davies from Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth starred as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Produced by Sue Birtwistle and directed by Simon Langton, the serial was a BBC...
.
She currently lives in the small village of Itchenor
West Itchenor
West Itchenor is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It lies north of the B2179 Chichester to West Wittering road 4.5 miles southwest of Chichester. The village lies on the shores of Chichester Harbour.The parish covers an area of 413 hectares...
, just a few miles from her city of birth (Chichester).