Remembering Phyllida Law the mother of Dame Emma Thompson

Stage, television and film actress Phyllida Law, who has died at 94, was the mother of Dame Emma Thompson and Sophie Thompson and the widow of Eric Thompson, who provided the voices for the children’s TV favourite, The Magic Roundabout.

Phyllida appeared on screen several times alongside Emma and Sophie, including in the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, in which Phyllida played Mrs Bates and Sophie played her daughter.

She also appeared alongside Emma in 1992’s Peter’s Friends, directed by her daughter’s then-husband, Sir Kenneth Branagh, and in Sir Kenneth’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing the following year, also alongside Emma.

In 1997 she again appeared alongside her eldest daughter in Alan Rickman’s directorial debut The Winter Guest, in which the pair played mother and daughter. More than a decade later she had a voice role in Emma’s 2005 film Nanny McPhee, which she wrote and starred in.

Born in Glasgow in 1932, Phyllida initially had aspirations to become a stage designer – but ended up studying acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Television provided frequent employment and she appeared in Play School, The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club, Midsomer Murders, Monarch Of The Glen, Rosemary & Thyme, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Foyle’s War, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and New Tricks.

On stage she appeared alongside Alec Guinness in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1971 and in Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973, which then transferred to the West End.

Hre other stage credits included the original London cast of La Cage Aux Folles at the London Palladium in 1986, playing the role of Jacqueline.

She was also in such films as Anna Karenina, Saving Grace, and Miss Potter.

She was made an OBE for services to drama and charitable causes in 2014.

Her husband died in 1982 and Phyllida is survived by Emma, Sophie and four grandchildren.