Diana Payne-Myers obituary
My friend Diana Payne-Myers, who has died aged 92 after a short illness, was appointed MBE for services to dance in 2002. She liked to go barefoot through the London summers but succumbed to footwear for the investiture. Would she frolic at the podium? She chose instead discreetly to remind the Queen that they (along with Princess Margaret) shared the experience of having had dancing lessons with the eminent Violet Ballantine in earlier days.
Diana’s father, William Payne, a surgeon with modern views, encouraged her independence and physical confidence. Her mother, May (nee Torrance), nicknamed her Pussy for her wide-eyed cuteness and her nimble propensity to enter the family home via the window. The innocent pet name stuck, later acquiring a racy twinkle in a show-business milieu.
Born and raised in Darlington, County Durham, Diana attended Casterton College, a boarding school in Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria. She rebelled somewhat in her early 20s, making her way into professional dance training with studies at the Rambert School in London. Variety engagements followed, Diana on the bill with Max Miller, Frank Sinatra, Mrs Shufflewick, Jerry Lewis and other stars. Up for a speaking part in the revue For Adults Only she bonded with the show’s writer Peter Myers, and they married in 1958. Diana retired soon after, to support her husband and raise their two children, Saffron and Japheth, who would both go on to work in theatre.
Diana and I met at Pineapple Studios in Covent Garden, where, in her middle age (and by then divorced), she re-engaged with ballet classes. She made her comeback with my dance troupe in Percy Circus, which premiered at the Hackney Empire in 1988. Thereafter I would work with her whenever her busy diary would permit.
Entering her 60s in the realm of postmodern dance and physical theatre, in the ensuing decades Diana worked with choreographers such as Lloyd Newson, Arthur Pita, Philippe Decouflé, Ian Spink, Wayne McGregor, Natasha Gilmore and Jonathan Burrows, each enjoying her compelling commitment and multiple skills.
She surprised us with her Buster Keaton-like affinity with props and obstacles. As the subversive housemaid Edna in the Stephen Daldry production of Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, she enjoyed multiple West End runs and tours. Astonishingly, the gig took her right up to the age of 91.
She is survived by Saffron and Japheth, two grandsons, Harry and Joey, and her brother, Ian.
