A Speech Not Spoken.

I was in my late teens when I heard Dennis Price utter these immortal lines to Joan Greenwood in the Ealing black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets.

‘I’d say that you were a perfect combination of imperfections. I’d say that your nose was just a little too short, your mouth just a little too wide; but that yours was a face a man could see in his dreams for the whole of his life. I’d say that you were vain, selfish, cruel, deceitful. I’d say that you were adorable.’

I thought at the time that Joan Greenwood was, indeed, adorable. But I'd say that her face was actually the essence of perfection, and her voice both inimitable and captivating. I still think so.

And I always hoped that one day I would have the opportunity to relate those lines to someone who could come within touching distance of the peerless Joan. I never did.