Don't bother, they're here
Best Drama Series
In My Skin (BBC Three)
Manhunt: The Night Stalker (ITV)
Unforgotten (ITV)
Vigil (BBC One)
Best Scripted Comedy
Motherland (BBC Two)
Alma’s Not Normal (BBC Two)
Stath Lets Flats (Channel 4)
We Are Lady Parts (Channel 4) Continue reading “2022 British Academy Television Awards nominations”
The funniest text messages from the public will be read out by the world’s greatest actors live on stage in the West End…and the producers of THE JOY OF TEXT want to hear from YOU!
For one night only, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Denise Gough, Tamsin Greig, Pearl Mackie, Aki Omoshaybi, Nicholas Pinnock, Iwan Rheon, Dougray Scott, Catherine Tate and Indira Varma, will read out funny, tragic or tragically funny text conversations at the Savoy Theatre, on Monday April 25th…with many more stars to be announced. Continue reading “News: A host of stars line up for The Joy of Text”
“Your kind think you’re some kind of heroic martyr, you won’t be told or fobbed off. If people get dragged into your mess then it’s jolly unfortunate but you don’t give a shit because you have right on your side”
Now this is the good stuff. Series 13 of Silent Witness opted to shake things up just a little more than usual and the result, for me, is one of their most effective seasons to date. For one, having Leo be the one who is attacked rather than Nikki is (three series on the trot in case you’d forgotten) is just nice for the variety but adding a note of frailty into this most sanctimonious of characters works well.
It also sets up a cracking episode which sees Nikki and Harry at loggerheads as they take the same evidence and end up with wildly different conclusions which they’re then forced to defend in court. And a campus shooting episode, whilst having hardly anything to do with forensic pathology, is brilliantly conceived and chillingly executed. Fresh takes on the storytelling really makes this series feel alive. Continue reading “TV Review: Silent Witness Series 13”
“Grief can be its own kind of hell”
Too Close comes to ITV with Clara Salaman adapting her own pseudonymous novel and Susan Tully directing the 3-part series. And rather impressive it was too, continuing to buck the (possibly unfair) preconceived notions about ITV dramas that persist in my mind.
Emily Watson plays Dr Emma Robertson, a forensic psychiatrist returning to work after a personal tragedy, whose first case back is that of Denise Gough’s Connie Mortensen, a woman accused of a horrific case of attempted murder whose fitness to stand trial Emma must declare. Continue reading “TV Review: Too Close (ITV)”
Hear Me Out is a brand-new podcast from actor and producer Lucy Eaton, most recently seen on TV screens starring alongside David Tennant, Michael Sheen, and her brother Simon Evans in BBC1’s Staged. The first four episodes are now available to listen to with guests Mark Bonnar, Denise Gough, Adrian Lester, and Claire Skinner. A new episode will then be released each Tuesday from 30 March onwards with future guests including Brendan Coyle, Freddie Fox, Patricia Hodge, Maddy Hill, and Giles Terera. Hear Me Out is available to listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor.com, and all major streaming platforms. Filmed clips from the episodes can also be found on YouTube @PodHearMeOut.
Hear Me Out puts the audience back in the stalls or, closer still, the rehearsal room. Creeping further into 2021, many have endured twelve months without a curtain going up. This new podcast invites theatre-loving audiences to re-connect with theatre-makers in a unique celebration of language and performance. Continue reading “News: two new theatrically inclined podcasts announced”
The National Theatre has today announced three new filmed productions have been added to its streaming service National Theatre at Home, including Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika, Marianne Elliott (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, War Horse)’s multi-award-winning production of Tony Kushner’s two-part masterpiece, with a cast including Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), Denise Gough (Paula), Nathan Lane (American Crime Story), James McArdle (Ammonite), Susan Brown (It’s A Sin) and Russell Tovey (Years and Years). Continue reading “News: Angels in America amongst productions added to National Theatre at Home”
“A new start is good for me…”
After four instalments over five years, it took three years for the Messiah series to return with The Rapture, a self-described ‘second chapter’ for the show written by Oliver Brown. And it has to be described thus because it is the first Messiah story not to feature Ken Stott’s DCI Red Metcalfe at its heart. And yet it doesn’t try to distinguish itself at all as it retreads the ‘serial killer following a bizarre pattern’ storyline that has been the series’ hallmark.
The core team has been entirely replaced, but baffingly with fascimiles of themself. Gruff lead detective with a haunted past, supported by young female and gruff older sergeants. Marc Warren, Marsha Thomason and Daniel Ryan are all fine in their roles but having to get to know an entirely new cast in the fifth series of a show, and with a reduced running time to boot, just makes you wonder why they thought besmirching the Messiah name in this way was an acceptable idea. Continue reading “TV Review: Messiah – The Rapture (2008)”
“Your evidence is based solely on the deluded ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic and the manipulative whisperings of a serial killing psychopath”
In all honesty, I’d forgotten that they killed off Stella in Series 8 of Waking the Dead and the rather low-key way in which she was dispatched seems to indicate the writers wanted it that way. I think Félicité Du Jeu did well to try and assimilate into the team but she rarely got much of a shot in terms of characterisation aside from being their dogsbody. Alors…
So we’re given a new junior – Stacey Roca as Detective Sergeant Katrina Howard – but once again there’s so little attention paid to developing her character that it is little surprise she only lasts for this one series. And whilst I’m being critical, the lack of follow-through from the traumatic events for Boyd at the end of the last series is a dereliction of duty IMHO. Continue reading “TV Review: Waking the Dead Series 8”
“I want people not screens”
One of the main strengths, for me, of Unprecedented has been the sheer variety of the writing that has responded to Covid-19 here. Previous episodes (#1, #2, #3, #4) have all impressed but the combination of writers in this fifth instalment really captures that lightning-in-a-bottle potential that makes the best theatre spark.
I watched Chloë Moss’ Everybody’s Talkin’ whilst hungover but not even I can blame the huge weeping tears on that alone, this is a beautifully pitched, gorgeously performed slice of family drama in miniature. Three daughters gather on Zoom to speak with their recently bereaved mother but the trials of finding a new normal, within the context of already having find a new normal is full of unimaginable pain. Moss’ writing and Caitlin McLeod’s direction speaks directly to the challenges that so many faced even before coronavirus hit, and during, and Sue Johnston leads the cast marvellously.
We are proud to announce the launch of THE MONOLOGUE LIBRARY, an audio love letter to the industry. #MonoLibrary is a FREE resource of over 100 monologues recorded by professional actors in isolation to celebrate, commiserate & share speeches that mean something to them now… pic.twitter.com/GuT7Y7wQ1q
— The Mono Box (@TheMonoBox) May 1, 2020
I’m off to listen to Patsy Ferran read Tom Wells, and Gabby Wong read Alexi Kaye Campbell, and Sarah Niles read Winsome Pinnock and…and…