Joyce Grenfell

thumb|right|Joyce Grenfell in 1972 Joyce Irene Grenfell (née Phipps) (10 February 1910 – 30 November 1979) was an English film and television actress and comedienne. Quotes Stately as a galleon, I sail across the floor,Doing the military two-step, as in the days of yore. Stately as a Galleon (1978), "Stately as a Galleon" They look quite promising in the shop, and not entirely without hope when I get them back into my wardrobe. But then, when I put them on they tend to deteriorate with a very strange rapidity and one feels sorry for them. Stately as a Galleon (1978), "English Lit." (of new clothes) Progress everywhere today does seem to come so very heavily disguised as chaos. Stately as a Galleon (1978), "English Lit." If I should go before the rest of you,Break not a flower, nor inscribe a stone,Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice,But be the usual selves That I have known. Poem If I should go before the rest of you I don't understand Ethel.I don't, I don't really.She's one of my very best friends,Just about the best, nearly.She's an awfully nice girl, Ethel is,Dainty and refined,I mean she'd never do or sayAnything unkind.But get her inside a stadiumAnd she seems to go out of her mind. Poem Ethel I was allowed to slave for themFor ever and evermore.Oh, I was allowed to fetch and carryFor my Three Brothers,Jim and Bob and Harry. Poem Three Brothers George - don't do that. Catch phrase, used as the title of a book collecting her monologues, George - Don't Do That (1977) About Grenfell Nobody is safe. Deviate by a hair's-breadth from normal behaviour in her presence and you become a specimen in her collection. She has the ear to record every nuance of vour talk and the tongue to reproduce it. W.A. Darlington "A Dangerous Woman but Company", The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post (London, 24 March 1965), p. 18 From a review of her one-woman show at the Queen's Theatre. External links Monologue: Nursery School - Flowers Category:1910 births Category:1979 deaths Category:Actresses from England Category:Comedians from England Category:Humorists Category:Singer-songwriters from England Category:Women singers Category:People from London Category:Women born in the 1910s