Prunella Scales’ son ‘sad’ she won’t see him star in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

The actor son of Prunella Scales and Timothy West has said he feels “very sad” that they will be unable to watch him play Malvolio in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming production of Twelfth Night.

Scales, best known for her role as Sybil in Fawlty Towers, died at the age of 93 on October 27, almost a year after the death of her husband, Timothy.

Samuel West, who has starred in Apple TV+’s Slow Horses and Netflix’s The Crown, told BBC Radio 4’s Last Word: “I’m about to open as Malvolio in the RSC’s Twelfth Night at the Barbican for Christmas and the thought that neither of them will see it…

“I mean, the first time we did it, it was just after my father’s death, and I sort of did it for him, but the idea that neither of them will see it now makes me very sad, but I mean, they’ll see it somehow.”

He added: “People said after her death, they’ll be reunited in heaven, cruising canals, but actually, knowing my parents, I think they’re much more likely to be touring some agitprop play.”

The actor’s father, who died in November 2024, starred in TV shows such as comedy drama Brass, sitcom Not Going Out and soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders.

Together, West’s mother and father filmed 10 series of the Channel 4 programme Great Canal Journeys, in which they travelled across the UK and other parts of the world exploring different waterways, and talking openly about Scales’ dementia diagnosis.

West said: “When they came to do Great Canal Journeys, they’d really been on the canals for 30 years, I think, and knew roughly what they were doing.

“It was quite unusual to have older people on television who aren’t a focus of either tragedy or comedy, for them being about to die or not being able to do something properly.

“And although they did hit the odd boat, the only sadness at that time was that my mother was suffering from a sort of dementia.

“And I remember saying to my dad, when they did the first episode, ‘You’re going to have to discuss this on camera with ma in a two shot, so that you’re both together, and we know that you’re not discussing it behind her back’.

“And he said, ‘Really? I mean, it’s an open secret in the profession’. And I said, ‘Yeah, but I think outside the profession it’s a real secret. I think you’d be surprised’.

“And when the first episode came out, it was front page news on the Daily Express and the Daily Mail that my mother had dementia.”

He added: “My father maintained that it was a programme about industrial architecture. But I think he was only being a bit disingenuous.

“We who had seen it and loved it and became addicted to it, and indeed, in my case, appeared in a few episodes, knew that it was a love story.”

West said his mother died a day after what would have been her 62nd wedding anniversary.

Speaking about her stand-out role as Sybil, he said: “The only thing that really annoyed her was when people said ‘You’ll never get a better part’.

“But no, she was always very grateful for the success of Fawlty Towers.”

He added: “She would never have spoken slightingly of it. She was always very grateful for it.”

Last Word will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 4pm on Friday October 31 and again on Sunday November 2 at 8.30pm.