The Ride across Lake Constance 1971

Your editor writes: "In the early Sevenies, I lived in Hampstead, a stones throw from the Hampstead Theatre Club. In 1973, suddenly to my immense pleasure, they put on the UK premiere of The Ride across Lake Constance with Nicola Padgett in one of the leading roles. The rest of the cast included Alan Howard, Jenny Agutter, Nicky Henson, Nigel Hawthorne, Faith Brook and Gayle Hunnicutt, most of whom were then still relatively unknown.

Now Nicola played the rebellious and thoroughly spoiled Elizabeth Bellamy in Upstairs, Downstairs, one of the big hits on television at the time. I had always felt that it should have been Elizabeth, not Georgina (played by Lesley-Anne Down), who was spanked in the series and done properly, not with a newspaper. Any way, it seemed to good to be true that Nicola Padgett was coming to Hampstead in person to be spanked on stage by Nigel Hawthorne. Nigel looked almost in ecstacy as he applied the crop to Nicola's bottom, which unfortunately was pretty well padded. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed the play so much that I went back to see it again, even if I was not absolutely sure what much of it was about."