சுயசரிதை
Though best known as Hercule Poirot on BBC radio, John Moffatt was a rigorously classical and impeccably tasteful stage actor. He seemed somewhat old-fashioned, yet few today could match his flawless technique, his remarkable understanding of comedic styles from the Restoration to Rattigan, or his signature stillness and dignity on stage, which countered misconceptions of flamboyance or frivolity. His precise diction was equally notable.
A luminary in his field, he was deeply respected and cherished, not least because he worked with nearly every notable figure in theatre—from his idols Noel Coward and John Gielgud to his closest friends Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, and Joan Plowright—and above all because he was both humorous and modest about his own achievements.
Early in his repertory days at the Oxford Playhouse, he portrayed Kulygin, the schoolteacher in Chekhov's Three Sisters, who shaves off his moustache between the third and fourth acts. One evening, he forgot to remove it and noticed Dench turning red, anticipating her line, "You've shaved off your moustache." He quickly glanced away, then removed the moustache just in time. Dench denies this, insisting she said, "You've shaved off your moustache," followed by, "and grown it back..." (Moffatt twirls and rips off the moustache) "...and shaved it off again!"
A similar onstage playful chaos occurred at the Old Vic in 1959 when Moffatt, Dench, McCowen, Smith, Moyra Fraser, and Joss Ackland forged a strong bond performing in As You Like It and The Merry Wives of Windsor; their friendship continued with weekly Sunday lunches for many years.
Born in Badby, Northamptonshire, Moffatt was the elder son of royal household employees Ernest Moffatt and Letitia. Though he rarely spoke of it, and kept a lifelong diary, his parents worked first at Queen Alexandra's Marlborough House (Ernest as a wine waiter, Letitia as a housemaid) and later at Sandringham.
The family resided in Mortlake, southwest London. Moffatt attended East Sheen County School and took drama lessons at Toynbee Hall in the East End while working as a bank clerk in the City. He avoided military service during World War II due to his work in children's theatre and made his professional debut at Perth Rep in 1945, where he befriended McCowen, with whom he performed in five plays. They shared a lifelong love for comedians Max Miller, Max Wall, and Jack Benny, and their favorite show was the 1979 Broadway revue Sugar Babies starring Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. These tastes reflected the effortless style and comic skill Moffatt brought to every role.
After five years in repertory at Perth, Oxford, Windsor, and Bristol, he made his London debut in 1950 at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in Molière's Tartuffe and appeared in revue at the Watergate. He took minor roles in a Gielgud Shakespeare season at the Phoenix in 1951 and played the foreign secretary in Shaw's The Apple Cart with Coward at the Haymarket, delivering the memorable line, "You can't upset the apple cart like this," when Coward's character threatened abdication.
His breakthrough came in 1956 at the Royal Court, appearing in Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan with Peggy Ashcroft and Nigel Dennis's Cards of Identity alongside Joan Plowright, John Osborne, Robert Stephens, and Alan Bates. He then helped clear a box-office deficit in Wycherley's The Country Wife, which moved from the Court to the Adelphi; Kenneth Tynan praised his portrayal of Sparkish as "a complacent ecstasy that never brims over into silliness."
Following his New York debut with The Country Wife, he joined the 1959 Old Vic company. A decade later, with the National Theatre, he was a definitive Fainall in Congreve's The Way of the World, a sleek and lethal cardinal in Webster's The White Devil, and a cunning Judge Brack in Hedda Gabler with Smith, directed by Ingmar Bergman.
In 1972, he anchored a superb Coward revue, Cowardy Custard, at the Mermaid, devised by Gerard Frow, Alan Strachan, and Wendy Toye (who also directed). At the Theatre Royal, York, in 1974, he played Widow Twankey in Aladdin; throughout his career, he authored and performed in half a dozen traditional pantomime scripts.
His final decade on the London stage included Ben Travers's The Bed Before Yesterday (1975), where he portrayed a timid, ineffectual husband opposite a suddenly assertive Plowright; an acerbic theatre producer in The Play's the Thing (Ferenc Molnar via P.G. Wodehouse) at Greenwich in 1979; and another foreign office official in Ronald Harwood's Interpreters (1985), where he facilitated a clandestine meeting between Smith and Edward Fox.
His last major West End role came in 1984 as Witwoud in William Gaskill's acclaimed Chichester Festival production of The Way of the World, alongside Smith and Plowright. Michael Billington praised his dazzling high camp performance, expertly masking provincial roots. Smith affectionately nicknamed him "Moffatty Woffatty" sotto voce as they entered the stage together, swatting imaginary midges—a private ritual.
He retired from the stage at Wyndham's in 1988, portraying George Bernard Shaw in Peter Luke's Married Love, a tedious, moralizing biography of Marie Stopes directed by Plowright. He later revived a verse compilation, Fond and Familiar, performed with Judi Dench and her husband Michael Williams. After Williams's death, Dench and Moffatt continued the piece with Geoffrey Palmer.
