Helen Thomson’s acting credits for Australian screens, big and small, include time on Blue Heelers, Rake, the 00s crime caper Gettin’ Square and most recently, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic playing the crooner’s mother, Gladys Presley.
But the Queensland-bred actor is just as busy performing live as she is on camera. Her next theatre role is as Lady Bracknell in a new production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and she credits one of her earliest stage appearances in classic play The Crucible in the 90s as a launchpad for her career.
During that production, she was given a very special – and now very topical – doll. Here, the longtime thespian tells us about that cherished present and shares the stories of two other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
I went to see the Barbie movie last weekend and loved it. It reminded me of the one Barbie that lives in my house.
When I was starting out as an actor, I was fortunate enough to be cast as Abigail in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. This would have been about 1991 for the then Royal Queensland Theatre Company. It was a hugely successful production and helped launch my career.
Opening nights are a big deal for actors and we have a tradition of giving each other gifts, cards and flowers. Witty gifts are always the best. My gift from the costume department was a Barbie dressed in a miniature version of my actual costume for Abigail: Barbie as a Salem witch from the 1600s! She has pride of place on a shelf in my office. I adore her.
My most useful object
I grew up on a farm outside a tiny town called Thangool in central Queensland. I was one of five children and it was a very happy and carefree childhood.
The dilemma for country kids is once you’ve finished school, do you stay or do you go? Although I was close to my family, I just couldn’t see what I would do if I stayed. Girls in my year were already pushing prams and I knew that wasn’t for me. I headed for Brisbane.
My dear dad, who passed away just over a year ago, was a practical man. He taught his daughters to change a car tyre and supplied us with our own small toolbox when the time came to leave.
Over the years I’ve moved houses so many times and that toolbox has followed me. It contained a hammer, nails, Phillips-head screwdrivers and a tape measure.
I was the flatmate who could be counted on to get pictures on walls, curtain rods in place and to tighten a wobbly chair. Thanks, Dad!
The item I most regret losing
In my 20s, me and my girlfriends decided that we simply must learn flamenco dancing. But we needed shoes. I don’t think I could afford proper dance shoes at the time and popped into my local charity shop. I couldn’t believe my luck when these Italian leather T-bar beauties, in my size, were sitting on the shelf. I snapped them up for $10 and felt a million bucks in them.
The flamenco lessons fell by the wayside but the shoes stayed happily in my life for a year or two more, and then they disappeared. I still mourn them – every now and then I’ll try on an outfit and think how perfectly the lost shoes would pair with it. Maybe they found their way back to a charity shop and are making someone else happy.
The Importance of Being Earnest is playing at the Sydney Theatre Company 5 September – 14 October.
