Joanna David: Lady through the looking-glass

During the brief engagement of actress Emilia Fox and comic Vic Reeves, the gossip columns marvelled at the improbability of a Southern toff ­ the daughter of Edward (and Mrs Simpson) Fox, for heaven's sake ­ becoming hitched to a Northern oik. Little did they know, or little did they bother to find out, that Fox is only one generation removed from an impoverished upbringing in a flat just off the Commercial Road in London's East End. Her maternal grandmother ran a boys' boxing club.

During the brief engagement of actress Emilia Fox and comic Vic Reeves, the gossip columns marvelled at the improbability of a Southern toff ­ the daughter of Edward (and Mrs Simpson) Fox, for heaven's sake ­ becoming hitched to a Northern oik. Little did they know, or little did they bother to find out, that Fox is only one generation removed from an impoverished upbringing in a flat just off the Commercial Road in London's East End. Her maternal grandmother ran a boys' boxing club.

Not that any of this seems likely when you meet Emilia's mum, actress Joanna David. The assumption that she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth makes her laugh, she says, but it is easy to see where the assumption comes from. She is elegant, charming, and has beautifully modulated vowels and manners as flawless and delicate as porcelain. She apologises for being slightly late in the way others might apologise for breaking your toe. And politely implores me to publicise the plight of the venerable Unicorn Theatre for Children, currently homeless, although a prospective site has been found on the South Bank of the Thames, opposite the Tower of London. "I'm on the board," she explains. "Milly went from the age of four, so I've been involved for 23 years."

The main purpose of our meeting, however ­ in a chic coffee house near her home in Maida Vale, west London ­ is to promote The Glass, an ITV drama starting on Sunday. David plays Mary Duggan, the sister-in-law of a glazing tycoon played by John Thaw, and mother of the favourite nephew he wishes to take over his business. It is a supporting and yet highly significant role, for Duggan's confinement in a psychiatric hospital proves pivotal to the plot. It is a case, moreover, of art unwittingly imitating life. The producers of The Glass did not know it, but nine years ago David herself spent a month in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from chronic post-operative depression. "As an actor, one can turn a rather ghastly period in one's life into something useful," she says cheerfully.

David's mother, too, had psychiatric problems, undergoing a leucotomy, whereby the nerves to the brain are severed. "It isn't done today," David informs me. "My mother was an acute obsessional neurosis case, and there are now other ways of dealing with it. But mental illness remains a huge strain on the emotionally involved family. That is why this boy, Mary Duggan's son, gets increasingly volatile about his mother's illness."

And what of her own mother's illness? Did the leucotomy work? "Yes, because it took away the obsessional thing, but didn't change her sweetness of nature. They had said that she could end up vegetable-like, but she didn't. It made her docile, and she just sat in a chair smoking fags all day, whereas before she had been very highly charged. She'd been under such strain, you see, getting us all educated. As soon as we were all on our feet, when I was about 19, she suddenly keeled over and had this ghastly breakdown."

David had an elder brother and younger sister. Their father had abandoned the family when David was 11. "He'd done rather well in the war and came out a major, but then he tried all sorts of business ventures which failed. He got himself into a hideous mess and went bankrupt, but my mother stood by him and I think bailed him out for fraud. But eventually, he just walked away from it all."

Until then, the family lived in relative affluence in Hale, near Manchester. But David's father moved them to a shabby bedsit in London before leaving altogether. "I remember coming down on the train from Manchester, I suppose on a steam train, because you always thanked the driver. Mum met us on the platform and he was there, too. She said, 'Your father's leaving,' and that was it. It's hard now to remember how distressed one felt." She saw him again twice, before finding out a few months ago that he died only recently, in America. "I saw him again when I was about 20. My boyfriend in drama school lived in Cornwall, and we found his name applying for some licence or other down there. I knocked on his door and said, 'I'm your daughter.' I think I was rather cruel. I said, 'I've just come to see how you're living in style, while my mother is having an appalling time in the East End.' The next time I saw him was shortly before I had Millie. I think he was interested, because Edward had just made Day of the Jackal."

David and Fox met at Chichester in 1971, where they were both starring in The Rivals. She was quickly embraced not only by him but also by his daunting family, headed by the matriarchal Angela Fox, who died in 1999. "My ma-in-law was very colourful. I miss her. She was the illegitimate daughter of Freddie Lonsdale, the playwright, and longed to be involved in his life. I understood her insecurities, and she taught me a huge amount." The Foxes, like the Redgraves, are invariably described as a theatrical dynasty, but David chuckles when she hears that. She has never felt part of a dynasty, she says. Nor, she adds, is Edward the starchy patrician he so frequently plays on stage and screen. "He does have very good manners, his mother was very hot on all that. But he also has a deeply compassionate side. Besides, you should see him now, shifting furniture around with holes in his jersey and shoes. He's not wearing a bowler hat with a rolled umbrella." Why have they never married? "It was never on offer," she says, with a smile.

As well as Emilia, the couple have a 12-year-old son, Freddie. In fact, it was just before she fell pregnant with Freddie that she first felt searing pains in her head, which eventually led to the diagnosis of Arnold Chiari 1 Malformation, a brain condition caused by spinal fluid going into the head, but not draining down properly. She duly underwent major brain surgery ­ at the hands, she is eager to point out, of a brilliant surgeon, now a friend, called Michael Powell. However, although the operation was a complete success, she was riddled with anxiety afterwards. And the anxiety turned into depression.

"It took the form of terrible insomnia," she explains. "My son was only four and I could not stop thinking about him, and whether I still might die, and heaven knows what else. I got myself in a terrible stew. I simply could not switch my mind off, and yet I couldn't concentrate on anything, couldn't function at all. So I spent a month in hospital under the supervision of a psychiatrist who helped me get my sleep pattern back. With marvellous help, I managed to get on my feet again. And as I say, all that was rather helpful when I came to play Mary Duggan. I suppose I drew on my mother's experience, too. Actors are such scavengers." True enough, although some have more to scavenge from than others.

The first episode of 'The Glass' begins on Sunday at 9pm on ITV