Don't bother, they're here
Clearly, the first before-they-were-famous photo montage was a click-winner for the Guardian as they’ve gone back into Tristram Kenton’s archive for a second dip of notable actors earlier in their careers:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/nov/13/stars-before-they-were-famous-in-pictures-rachel-weisz-damian-lewis-daniel-kaluuya
Tackling the constraints of the pandemic in its own way, Simon Annand’s fantastic new book of photos Time To Act has launched a virtual exhibition of some of the photographs which has now been extended to until Christmas. It’s an ingenious way of sharing some of the hundreds of images from the book and should surely whet the appetite for either just buying it now or putting on your list for Santa to collect soon.
I’m loving this deep dive that the Guardian is doing into Tristram Kenton’s archive, this time taking a turn into the many Open Air Theatre productions he has been witness to. Highly recommended:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/aug/19/great-outdoors-the-magic-of-regents-park-open-air-theatre-in-pictures
I’m loving this deep dive that the Guardian is doing into Tristram Kenton’s archive, this time featuring the multitude of Hamlets he has been witness to. Recommended:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/aug/05/hamlet-branagh-rylance-rickman-in-pictures-tristram-kenton
Just a quickie for this book as The Half – Photographs of Actors Preparing for the Stage by Simon Annand was released in 2008. But with an imminent new exhibition of these photos and a bargainous copy of the book popping up on Ebay, I thought I’d take the plunge.
And I’m glad I did as it is a proper work of art in its own right. Annand has been photographing actors for over 25 years and as such, has a veritable treasure trove of shots to share with us, resulting from the trusting relationships he has built up with so many, from the new kids on the block to veritable dames. Continue reading “Book review: The Half – Simon Annand”
Rehearsal images for Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? have been released , ahead of the production’s first preview next week. Albee’s darkly comic play about a family in crisis will run for a strictly limited 12 week season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 24 March to 24 June 2017.
In Ian Rickson’s production, a husband and successful New York architect with everything to lose must confess to his wife and son that he is having an affair and face the dizzying, explosive consequences. Damian Lewis and Sophie Okonedo play husband and wife Martin and Stevie, joined by Jason Hughes as Martin’s oldest friend Ross and newcomer Archie Madekwe as their son Billy. Continue reading “Rehearsal images for Edward Albee’s The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia”
2017 is only just over a week away now and the reviewing diary is already filling up! All sorts of headline-grabbing West End shows have already been announced (The Glass Menagerie, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Don Juan In Soho, The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia) and the National look to continue a sensational year with another (Twelfth Night, Consent, the heaven-sent Angels in America), so this list is looking a little further afield to the London fringe and some of the UK theatres I hope to get to throughout the year.
After hearing Elizabeth Newman speak passionately on a panel discussion about women’s theatre, I kinda have a big (intellectual) crush on her, so I’m very keen to see her tackle a new adaptation by Deborah McAndrew of the classic Anne Bronte novel in a theatre that is very close to my heart.
Continue reading “20 shows to look forward to in 2017”
On 6th November 2016, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ever popular State Fair will be performed for the first time on the London stage as a symphonic concert by the London Musical Theatre Orchestra under award winning director and Evening Standard Awards nominee Thom Southerland (currently doing amazing work with Ragtime) at Cadogan Hall.
In a double first for the LMTO, this is also the first full scale public performance by the company which debuted its inaugural gala, in June of this year, to a packed house at Bishopsgate Institute where the orchestra is in residence. Continue reading “Round-up of news and treats and other interesting things”
“Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality”
It might seem curious timing for the Guardian to release the third and final set of their Shakespeare solos a good couple of weeks after the hullabaloo of #Shakespeare400 but if you look at the television schedules, you do see the attempts not to overload people with content. The second iteration of The Hollow Crown only starts this weekend and Russell T Davies’ take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream won’t be with us until the end of the month.
Still, these final five videos feel a little bereft of inspiration for me, featuring as they do two excerpts from the same play (The Merchant of Venice) and two actresses currently starring in the same play (The Maids). One of those, Zawe Ashton, does give us one of the highlights of the entire series with a beautifully mournful take on Jacques’ Seven Ages of Man speech from As You Like It but it’s hard not to wish that some of the casting choices had been equally as inventive. Continue reading “Shakespeare Solos – Part 3”
“By the thrice-beshitten shroud of Lazarus”Peter Straughan’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies into a six-part TV serial has no right to be this good but somehow, it manages the extraordinary feat of being genuinely excellent. I didn’t watch it at the time and so caught up with its complexities and nuances over a binge-watch at Christmas. And though I’m no real fan of his acting on stage, there’s no doubting the titanic performance of Mark Rylance as the almighty Thomas Cromwell.
Mantel charts the rise of this lowly-born blacksmith’s boy through service as lawyer to Cardinal Wolsey (a brilliant Jonathan Pryce) to the heights of the Tudor court as Henry VII’s (Damian Lewis on fine form) chief fixer, predominantly in the matter of securing the dissolution of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon to enable him to wed Anne Boleyn. Rylance really is very good, subtler than he is onstage as he negotiates the world of ‘gentlemen’ – in which he is constantly underestimated – from the sidelines, wielding increasing amounts of power, though with it fewer and fewer scruples. Continue reading “DVD Review: Wolf Hall”
