# Michael Gambon’s stage pranks left fellow actors struggling to keep straight faces

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/i-laughed-so-hard-my-tampax-fell-out-michael-gambons-pranks-revealed-by-the-stars-he-cracked-up/
- Published: 2026-10-26T12:15:41+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-26T12:47:43+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/oct/26/michael-gambon-pranks-revealed-biography
- Topics: Art, Culture

## Key points

- Gambon’s pranks repeatedly made co-stars break into laughter.
- His jokes ranged from stage improvisations to a Harry Potter fart machine.
- The stories appear in a new authorised biography.

## Summary

A new authorised biography of Michael Gambon recounts how his practical jokes and comic improvisations regularly made fellow actors laugh during performances. The stories show a mischievous side to the actor, known for work ranging from Shakespeare and Pinter to the Harry Potter films.

Among the examples, Lia Williams said she laughed so hard during Skylight that she had to cope with a fallen tampon for the rest of the act, while Judi Dench recalled a potato joke disrupting a scene in Ghosts. Gambon and Alan Rickman also set off a fart machine during a close-up of Daniel Radcliffe in a sleeping bag; the article describes other pranks involving Antony Sher, a fake Robert De Niro autograph and a message written on Gambon’s eyelids.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.