by My friend and colleague Polly March, who has died of cancer aged 77, was an actress of rare intelligence, wit and taste. She was particularly brilliant in comedic roles, where she had the unerring instincts of a light comedian – or a clown if the role required it. But with its depth of emotion and truth, it could also break your heart.
Until a few days before her death, Polly directed a production of Coriolanus with Roaring Voices, the group of young actors she founded in 2014 and which she directed with the Teatru Salesjan in Sliema, Malta.
She was born Marie-Therese Azzopardi-Preziosi in Sliema and adopted the slightly snappier stage name Polly March when she started out as an actress. Her Maltese father John worked in the government and her English mother Nancy (née Rickard) was a concert violinist. Polly was sent to Britain for her education and, after leaving the Holy Trinity convent school in Bromley, received training in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Stanislavsky Institute.
In the 1970s, Polly was a founding member of the Upstream Theater in Waterloo, along with artistic director Richard Everett. Her life and work were closely linked to her Christian faith. Her one-woman show about Lilian Baylis, Beauty and the Bounders, won several awards and was broadcast on BBC radio in 1986. Other solo appearances included a play about Julian of Norwich and The Small Zone about the dissident Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaya.
After starring in my musical The Great Big Radio Show at the Watermill Theater in Newbury in 1993, she was invited back to the theater to appear in a series of Alan Ayckbourn plays.
On radio, Polly starred in dramatizations of the Chronicles of Narnia books by CS Lewis with Paul Scofield and David Suchet. She also appeared in the 1997 Peabody Prize-winning drama Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Freedom.
In 2012 Polly returned to live in Malta for family reasons. She quickly became a leading figure in the theater scene, encouraging and supporting a whole generation of young theater makers. Most recently, she campaigned for justice in memory of the murdered investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Polly also walked the streets of Naxxar every day at dawn feeding stray cats and was featured in the 2023 film Cats of Malta as a member of a dedicated (and slightly eccentric) group of cat lovers.
In the play I wrote for her, Star of Strait Street, Polly portrayed a real-life World War II heroine, Christina Ratcliffe, who went to Malta to entertain the troops and ended up as an airplane plotter. It was performed as part of the Festival of Chichester 2023 and also toured Australia and America.
Everyone who knew Polly loved her very much. She had a wonderfully generous heart and brought lightness and life to every situation. My wife Lizzie and I were fortunate to know her, work together and share a joyful friendship with her over more than 50 years.
Polly is survived by her sister Elizabeth, nephews Julian and Antony and nieces Alison and Sara.
