Felicity Kendal is hunkering down over a low table, gaily ripping into a chicken sandwich to replace calories lost during the morning’s rehearsals for Strictly Come Dancing, and fuelling up for the afternoon session.
When she looks up to greet me, I see she is sporting a bruise below her right eye. Is this the aftermath of what Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli called the ‘smackeroonee’ — the lingering kiss she gave her dance partner Vincent Simone at the end of their steamy tango in week four?
Did Simone’s girlfriend, Susan Duddy, take her bloody revenge? Did Felicity’s ex-husband and now long-term partner Michael Rudman have a fit of jealousy?
When she started on Strictly, she joked that Texan director Rudman had fled back to the U.S. Following Drewe Henley in 1968, Rudman is her second husband. They were married in 1983, divorced in 1991 and reunited in 1998 after Kendal’s relationship with the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard broke down.
