Back in the Shakespeare business
DIANA RIGG, KNOWN TO A LARGER PUBLIC AS THE BIRD IN THE AVENGERS

THE PLOT sounds just right for Mrs. Peel, the ITV Avenger.  You know, kinky.

This girl dresses as a boy after being shipwrecked.  She becomes a page to a man with whom she falls in love.  He, thinking she is a boy, sends her to woo the girl he loves.  Then the fun begins, as the publicity men say.

But the author this time is William Shakespeare and the play Twelfth Night.

Mrs. Peel - sorry, Diana Rigg - began rehearsals at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford on Avon, yesterday for the part of Viola in the play, starting on June 16.

As she pointed out during a break: "I won't be wearing that leather gear (see above to refresh your memory) but I'll still be wearing trousers.  Old-fashioned ones, of course."

David Warner, 24, who made his name as Hamlet and in the film Morgan - A Suitable Case for Treatment, and Ian Holm, 33, are in the play too.

Miss Rigg, 27, was with the Royal Shakespeare Company before she became an avenger a year or so ago.

She said in January that she would not do another series of The Avengers - whose future depends on American reaction to them anyway - unless her pay is trebled to £450 a week.  At Stratford she is getting £70 a week.

From The Daily Mail, England, May 3rd 1966.

To see one critic's review of her performance click here

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