The Old Un’s Notes
✻ How quickly time flies! It is already ten years since the death, on 22nd September 2011, of the much-loved British comic actor Jonathan Cecil (19392011), once described by the Spectator as ‘one of the finest upper-class-twits of his era’.
Upper-class he certainly was – the son of the writer Lord David Cecil. His many distinguished relatives included Elizabeth I’s chief minister, Lord Burghley, his son Robert Cecil (her great spymaster after the death of Walsingham) and three-times Prime Minister Lord Salisbury.
Jonathan was no twit in real life. After Eton and Oxford – with Dennis Potter, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett – he trained at LAMDA, where fellow students included Ian the and others, and took a keen interest in the history of the theatre and music hall.
