My friend Sybil Mitchell, who has died aged 94, was an actor under the stage name Sybil Ewbank, and a member of the theatrical Thorndike family.
Sybil was born in Weymouth, Dorset, but spent her early years in Portsmouth where her father, Commander Maurice Ewbank, was in charge of Royal Navy vocational training. Her mother was Eileen Thorndike, sister of the celebrated actor Dame Sybil Thorndike, and herself both an actor and teacher, who was for some years principal of the Embassy School of Acting in London. Of the four Ewbank children, both Sybil and her sister Elizabeth became actors.
The family settled in London and, having attended Kensington high school, Sybil trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Her first professional job was in The Cherry Orchard at the Arts Theatre.
Next came pantomime at Cromer, and in 1949 a summer season of repertory with the Regency Players at Aberystwyth. Richard Baker and Hugh Lloyd were among her fellow players.
The 1950s saw Sybil established as a leading repertory actor in theatres up and down the the UK. In 1958 she was invited to play Lady Macbeth at Chesterfield, in a company that included Ronald Harwood as Banquo and a young Diana Rigg. At one curtain-call, Sybil and Harwood had to hold up the actor playing Macbeth; he had cut himself in the fight scene and was fainting at the sight of blood.
In 1964 she provided professional backing to a Cambridge University tour of apartheid South Africa. This included taking Shakespeare to the black townships, including Soweto. She also worked at the Donovan Maule theatre in Nairobi where she lived for nine years, having married Leonard Mitchell, a coffee-grower, in 1970.
I first met Sybil in 2002, when she was appearing at the Rondo Theatre in Bath in Dearest Friend, based on the letters of Clara and Robert Schumann. She was living in Bradford on Avon and I began to write small-scale recital pieces for her, most of which linked music and the spoken word. These were a great success locally and we remained close friends for the rest of her life.
Sybil bore a striking resemblance to Sybil Thorndike, and twice played her aunt’s most famous part – Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Throughout her career and into old age she remained a standard-bearer for stage speech that is clear, flowing, vibrant and expressive.
Sybil’s husband died in 2004. She is survived by three nieces and two nephews, and their children and grandchildren.
