Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
New man at Lambeth
Lambeth Palace
Dark comedy by Christopher William Hill imagining the politics behind the scenes in the run-up to the selection of a fictional Archbishop of Canterbury. How far will an ultra-Establishment conservative and a barely-believing liberal go to win the top job in the Church of England?
Michael Lombard ...... Alex Jennings
David Channing ...... Geoffrey Whitehead
Grace Lombard ...... Phoebe Nicholls
Patrick Latimer ...... Murray Melvin
Alicia Latham ...... Susan Jameson
Simon Brooker ...... Philip Fox
Anthony Taylor ...... Sam Dale
Russell Graves ...... Stephen Hogan
Claudia ...... Caroline Guthrie
Robin ...... Jonathan Tafler
Cardinal Daeneker ...... Malcolm Tierney
Seb ...... Benjamin Askew
Jade ...... Lizzy Watts
With Kirsty Wark and Jonathan Dimbleby as themselves.
Other parts played by Janice Acquah, Matt Addis and Paul Rider.
Directed by Mary Peate.
BROADCAST
Sat 4 Apr 200914:30 BBC Radio 4
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Scarborough, the play
Scarborough: Double lessons in forbidden love
Dominic Cavendish reviews Scarborough at the Royal Court Upstairs
What a difference a decade makes. Back in 1995, Sarah Kane violently shook the new writing scene awake with Blasted, a play that put a young woman and her older lover together in a Leeds hotel room and then let barbarism and cruelty storm in unannounced.
Now, at the same address (the Royal Court Upstairs) here's a play set in the bedroom of a Scarborough B&B in which a couple - a generation apart in age - are enjoying a "dirty weekend".
There's no gunfire, no eye-gouging, just the steady drip-drip disappointment of a disintegrating, unsustainable relationship. The piece's shock value, such as it is, lies in a relationship straddling the age of consent, involving a teacher and a pupil.
Though rightly seized on as a find when it was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival last year, when transplanted to London Fiona Evans's Scarborough proves touching and often funny, but struggles to stir unexpected flickers of controversy, despite its subject and its novel devices.
The first, established last time, is to range the audience among the furniture of a meticulously recreated B?&?B room, complete with peeling floral wallpaper and wall-mounted Charles and Diana commemorative plates.
As you stand, sit or crouch, sometimes only inches away from the actors, you're left with no easy moral high ground to retreat to. Director Deborah Bruce puts us in the position of voyeurs; the normal boundaries have been blurred.
Equally neat is the way that, for this London run, we see the same situation twice, with the roles reversed. So, in the first half, we pry on 29-year-old Lauren (a wistful-eyed Holly Atkins) and Jack O'Connell's lithe, cocksure Daz, her PE pupil of 15, going on 16.
After the interval, we hear the same lines - barring a few minor adjustments - uttered by Aiden (a doleful, shifty Daniel Mays) and Rebecca Ryan's coolly self-possessed teen Beth.
What do we learn, amid their fun, frolics and verbal fights?
That perhaps we are conditioned to accept it as natural enough for a lusty lad to dive on top of a woman old enough to be his mother and roll about in the sack with her - but that we instinctively recoil in mild alarm at the sight of a grown man petting a girl young enough to be his daughter.
And, perhaps, we also glean that the male of the species copes less well with rejection.
Evans has touched on a source of fascination - and her dialogue has just the right combination of away-day brightness and sudden overclouded despondency to ring true.
I loved the way the teenagers seem old beyond their years yet engage in childish wind-ups and positively whoop at the sight of a games console gift. The writing captures the confidence of fresh-skinned adolescence versus the self-doubt and panic of those past the first flush of youth.
Yet none of the parties looks as if they're going to be permanently damaged by this anti-climactic weekend away. The play's called Scarborough but the scars don't, in the end, run all that deep.
Dominic Cavendish reviews Scarborough at the Royal Court Upstairs
What a difference a decade makes. Back in 1995, Sarah Kane violently shook the new writing scene awake with Blasted, a play that put a young woman and her older lover together in a Leeds hotel room and then let barbarism and cruelty storm in unannounced.
Now, at the same address (the Royal Court Upstairs) here's a play set in the bedroom of a Scarborough B&B in which a couple - a generation apart in age - are enjoying a "dirty weekend".
There's no gunfire, no eye-gouging, just the steady drip-drip disappointment of a disintegrating, unsustainable relationship. The piece's shock value, such as it is, lies in a relationship straddling the age of consent, involving a teacher and a pupil.
Though rightly seized on as a find when it was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival last year, when transplanted to London Fiona Evans's Scarborough proves touching and often funny, but struggles to stir unexpected flickers of controversy, despite its subject and its novel devices.
The first, established last time, is to range the audience among the furniture of a meticulously recreated B?&?B room, complete with peeling floral wallpaper and wall-mounted Charles and Diana commemorative plates.
As you stand, sit or crouch, sometimes only inches away from the actors, you're left with no easy moral high ground to retreat to. Director Deborah Bruce puts us in the position of voyeurs; the normal boundaries have been blurred.
Equally neat is the way that, for this London run, we see the same situation twice, with the roles reversed. So, in the first half, we pry on 29-year-old Lauren (a wistful-eyed Holly Atkins) and Jack O'Connell's lithe, cocksure Daz, her PE pupil of 15, going on 16.
After the interval, we hear the same lines - barring a few minor adjustments - uttered by Aiden (a doleful, shifty Daniel Mays) and Rebecca Ryan's coolly self-possessed teen Beth.
What do we learn, amid their fun, frolics and verbal fights?
That perhaps we are conditioned to accept it as natural enough for a lusty lad to dive on top of a woman old enough to be his mother and roll about in the sack with her - but that we instinctively recoil in mild alarm at the sight of a grown man petting a girl young enough to be his daughter.
And, perhaps, we also glean that the male of the species copes less well with rejection.
Evans has touched on a source of fascination - and her dialogue has just the right combination of away-day brightness and sudden overclouded despondency to ring true.
I loved the way the teenagers seem old beyond their years yet engage in childish wind-ups and positively whoop at the sight of a games console gift. The writing captures the confidence of fresh-skinned adolescence versus the self-doubt and panic of those past the first flush of youth.
Yet none of the parties looks as if they're going to be permanently damaged by this anti-climactic weekend away. The play's called Scarborough but the scars don't, in the end, run all that deep.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Plenty
A film based on a David Hare play, free with Saturday's Telegraph.
Synopsis
An exploration of post World War II European society and its discontents, as symbolised by the shifting emotional and political alliances of one English woman based on the critically acclaimed play by David Hare. For Susan Traherne (Merryl Streep) nothing can match the heroism and excitement of her wartime involvement with the French Resistance; nor can any man match the young soldier with whom she had an affair. Back in England, her youthful optimism slowly fades as she experiments with a variety of political movements and a variety of men. Tracey Ullman co-stars as Susan's constant companion, who lives life as a bohemian free spirit, uninhibited, but unable to stop Susan's decline into depression and unabashed alienation. Ultimately, Susan settles into a marriage with an upper class diplomat that leads to disillusionment and, finally, madness.
David Hare
Born June 5, 1947 in St. Leonards, Sussex, England, David Hare was educated at Lancing College, Sussex. He then went on to earn an MA in English from Jesus College, Cambridge in 1968.
His writing career began when a playwright failed to deliver a play to the Portable Theatre, a travelling theatre group Hare had co-founded with Tony Bicât. With only four days left before the scheduled performance and no play in sight, Hare sat down and composed what he now calls "a primitive satire on the unlikelihood of revolution in Britain." However, the short piece must have inspired some confidence in Hare's ability, for he was soon commissioned to write a full-length piece, Slag, which won him the Evening Standard Award for most promising new playwright. Set in a school for girls, Slag tells the story of three teachers who decide to abstain from sex as a protest. In the end, however, their attempt to establish an alternative society fails.
Hare served as literary manager (1969-70) and resident dramatist (1970-71) for the Royal Court Theatre, London. In 1973, he became resident dramatist at the Nottingham Playhouse. Then, in 1975, he co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company, for whom he adapted Fanshen (1975), William Hinton's book on the Chinese Revolution. Like most of Hare's political plays, Fanshen refuses to simplify complex moral issues. Focusing on the difficulties, mistakes, and corruptions of the revolution, Hare ultimately implies that those involved can learn from their mistakes and perhaps even move towards a more ideal society.
After 1975, Hare began to write for the National Theatre which produced Plenty (1978), A Map of the World (1983), and Pravda (1985). Plenty, often considered Hare's best play, revolves around a woman who served in the French Resistance during World War II but finds herself disillusioned by post-war Britain. The play questions the ability of world leaders to effect change. A Map of the World, which takes its title from Oscar Wilde's observation that "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at," contrasts the cynicism of a successful novelist with an aggressive and idealistic young journalist. And Pravda deals with the subservience of journalists to the power-hungry businessmen that dominate London's Fleet Street.
Hare continued his satire in a trilogy of plays which set their sights on one of Hare's favorite targets--institutions. Racing Demon (1990) examines the Church of England, Murmuring Judges (1991) questions the British legal system, and Absence of War (1993) takes a harsh look at Britain's Labour Party. Some of Hare's more recent plays, however, are less overtly political. Amy's View (1997) is a wry and witty exploration of the relationship between a mother and daughter, and The Judas Kiss (1998) speculates on what might have happened behind closed doors between playwright Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, the man he loved and who betrayed him.
In addition to directing his own work, Hare has directed many other plays including The Pleasure Principle (1973) by Snoo Wilson, Weapons of Happiness (1976) by Howard Brenton, and Devil's Island (1977) by Tony Bicât. He also directed a production of King Lear for the National Theatre which featured Anthony Hopkins as Lear. Since 1984, Hare has served as associate director of the National Theatre, London
In 1982, Hare founded a film company, Greenpoint Films. He has written several screenplays including Plenty (1985), Weatherby (1985), Strapless (1989), Paris By Night (1989), and Damage (1992). He has also written several teleplays for the BBC including Licking Hitler (1978) and Saigon: The Year of the Cat (1983).
Hare's awards include the BAFTA Award (1979), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1983), the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear (1985), the Olivier Award (1990), and the London Theatre Critics' Award (1990).
Synopsis
An exploration of post World War II European society and its discontents, as symbolised by the shifting emotional and political alliances of one English woman based on the critically acclaimed play by David Hare. For Susan Traherne (Merryl Streep) nothing can match the heroism and excitement of her wartime involvement with the French Resistance; nor can any man match the young soldier with whom she had an affair. Back in England, her youthful optimism slowly fades as she experiments with a variety of political movements and a variety of men. Tracey Ullman co-stars as Susan's constant companion, who lives life as a bohemian free spirit, uninhibited, but unable to stop Susan's decline into depression and unabashed alienation. Ultimately, Susan settles into a marriage with an upper class diplomat that leads to disillusionment and, finally, madness.
David Hare
Born June 5, 1947 in St. Leonards, Sussex, England, David Hare was educated at Lancing College, Sussex. He then went on to earn an MA in English from Jesus College, Cambridge in 1968.
His writing career began when a playwright failed to deliver a play to the Portable Theatre, a travelling theatre group Hare had co-founded with Tony Bicât. With only four days left before the scheduled performance and no play in sight, Hare sat down and composed what he now calls "a primitive satire on the unlikelihood of revolution in Britain." However, the short piece must have inspired some confidence in Hare's ability, for he was soon commissioned to write a full-length piece, Slag, which won him the Evening Standard Award for most promising new playwright. Set in a school for girls, Slag tells the story of three teachers who decide to abstain from sex as a protest. In the end, however, their attempt to establish an alternative society fails.
Hare served as literary manager (1969-70) and resident dramatist (1970-71) for the Royal Court Theatre, London. In 1973, he became resident dramatist at the Nottingham Playhouse. Then, in 1975, he co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company, for whom he adapted Fanshen (1975), William Hinton's book on the Chinese Revolution. Like most of Hare's political plays, Fanshen refuses to simplify complex moral issues. Focusing on the difficulties, mistakes, and corruptions of the revolution, Hare ultimately implies that those involved can learn from their mistakes and perhaps even move towards a more ideal society.
After 1975, Hare began to write for the National Theatre which produced Plenty (1978), A Map of the World (1983), and Pravda (1985). Plenty, often considered Hare's best play, revolves around a woman who served in the French Resistance during World War II but finds herself disillusioned by post-war Britain. The play questions the ability of world leaders to effect change. A Map of the World, which takes its title from Oscar Wilde's observation that "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at," contrasts the cynicism of a successful novelist with an aggressive and idealistic young journalist. And Pravda deals with the subservience of journalists to the power-hungry businessmen that dominate London's Fleet Street.
Hare continued his satire in a trilogy of plays which set their sights on one of Hare's favorite targets--institutions. Racing Demon (1990) examines the Church of England, Murmuring Judges (1991) questions the British legal system, and Absence of War (1993) takes a harsh look at Britain's Labour Party. Some of Hare's more recent plays, however, are less overtly political. Amy's View (1997) is a wry and witty exploration of the relationship between a mother and daughter, and The Judas Kiss (1998) speculates on what might have happened behind closed doors between playwright Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, the man he loved and who betrayed him.
In addition to directing his own work, Hare has directed many other plays including The Pleasure Principle (1973) by Snoo Wilson, Weapons of Happiness (1976) by Howard Brenton, and Devil's Island (1977) by Tony Bicât. He also directed a production of King Lear for the National Theatre which featured Anthony Hopkins as Lear. Since 1984, Hare has served as associate director of the National Theatre, London
In 1982, Hare founded a film company, Greenpoint Films. He has written several screenplays including Plenty (1985), Weatherby (1985), Strapless (1989), Paris By Night (1989), and Damage (1992). He has also written several teleplays for the BBC including Licking Hitler (1978) and Saigon: The Year of the Cat (1983).
Hare's awards include the BAFTA Award (1979), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1983), the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear (1985), the Olivier Award (1990), and the London Theatre Critics' Award (1990).
Monday, January 14, 2008
Lark Rise to Candleford
Another cracking costume drama began on tv last night.
Lark Rise To Candleford – a ten-part adaptation starts Sunday 13 January at 7.40pm on BBC
Introduction
Julia Sawalha, Olivia Hallinan, Dawn French, Brendan Coyle, Olivia Grant, Mark Heap, Ben Miles and Liz Smith star in a ten-part adaptation of Flora Thompson's magical memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood for BBC One, Lark Rise To Candleford, a love letter to a vanished corner of rural England and a heart-warming drama series teeming with wit, wisdom and romance.
Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, at the end of the 19th Century, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm workers, craftsmen and gentry, observing characters in loving, boisterous and competing communities of families, rivals, friends and neighbours.
This world is seen through the eyes of a teenage girl, Laura Timmins (Olivia Hallinan – Sugar Rush, Torchwood), as she leaves Lark Rise to start a new life under the wing of her cousin, the independent and effervescent Dorcas Lane (Julia Sawalha – Hornblower, Pride And Prejudice), who is Post Mistress at the local Post Office in Candleford.
Through them, viewers experience the force of friendship as they see each other through the best and worst of times. Lark Rise To Candleford is warm, funny, poignant, occasionally tragic but overall a celebration of the spirit of community.
Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction, says: "Bill Gallagher has created a strong, funny and heart-warming drama series from Flora Thompson's novel.
"His drama naturally displays the enduring beauty of the English countryside but, more than that, it displays the enduring power of human landscape: the comedy, the whimsy, the moments of pain and heartbreak, and the collective and courageous force of family, friends and neighbours that see our characters through the best and worst of times.
"The talent and strength of the assembled cast and production team pay tribute to the excellence of Bill's vision and scripts."
Kate Harwood, Head of Series and Serials, adds: "Lark Rise To Candleford, Flora Thompson's touching and personal memoir of her North Oxfordshire youth, was originally developed by BBC Drama Production as a conventional drama serial. Eventually, the idea came to find a different take on the book and to develop it as a longer running pre-watershed, returnable drama series.
"Happily the material responded wonderfully to this; as writer Bill Gallagher says, the books are crammed so full of stories that you can just shake the pages and another one falls out. But Flora Thompson's stories are very particular; they are anecdotal and personal and therefore need a dramatist's imagination and narrative skills to take them from a beautifully evoked idea and to turn them into a fully fledged, hour-long drama.
"For example, the opening story of the series, which tells of a dispute between the two communities that has to be resolved using some delicate and clever thinking, is one that is contained in no more than a few sentences in the book. Bill has taken that idea and turned it into a richly and touching narrative through which we launch Laura on her journey to Candleford and into her adult life."
Lark Rise To Candleford is produced by BBC Drama Production and written by Bill Gallagher (Conviction, Out Of The Blue, Wokenwell).
The producer is Grainne Marmion (The State Within) and the executive producers are Sue Hogg and Bill Gallagher.
Lark Rise To Candleford was written by Flora Thompson and first published in 1945.
Flora was born in 1876 at Juniper Hill in Oxfordshire, and lived in a small hamlet until she took up work in a nearby town, assisting at the Post Office, at the age of 14.
Lark Rise to Candleford is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the English countryside, written by Flora Thompson, and first published in that form in 1945. The trilogy includes the previously published stories Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941) and Candleford Green (1943).
The stories relate to three communities, a hamlet, the nearby village and the nearest town in Oxfordshire, England at the start of the 20th century. The stories are loosely based around Flora's childhood experiences.
She wrote a sequel Heatherley (c.1944) which was published posthumously.
Flora Jane Thompson (5 December 1876 – 21 May 1947) was an English novelist and poet famous for her semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, Lark Rise to Candleford.
She was born in Juniper Hill in north-east Oxfordshire, the eldest of six children of Albert and Emma Timms, a stonemason and nursemaid respectively. Her favourite brother, Edwin, was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Flora was educated at Cottisford and worked in Post Offices in south-east England until marrying John William Thompson in 1903, with whom she had two sons (the younger, Peter, later lost at sea in 1941) and a daughter.
Thompson benefited from good access to books when the the public library opened in Winton, in 1907. Not long after in 1911, she won an essay competition in 'The Ladies Companion' for a three hundred word essay on Jane Austen. Subsequently, she wrote extensively, publishing short stories and magazine and newspaper articles. She was a keen self-taught naturalist and many of her nature articles were anthologised in 1986.
Her most famous works are the Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, which she sent as essays to Oxford University Press in 1938 and were published soon after. She wrote a sequel Heatherley which was published posthumously. The books are a fictionalised, if autobiographical, social history of rural English life in the late 19th and early 20th century and are now considered minor classics.
Flora Thompson died in 1947 in Brixham, Devon.
Lark Rise To Candleford – a ten-part adaptation starts Sunday 13 January at 7.40pm on BBC
Introduction
Julia Sawalha, Olivia Hallinan, Dawn French, Brendan Coyle, Olivia Grant, Mark Heap, Ben Miles and Liz Smith star in a ten-part adaptation of Flora Thompson's magical memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood for BBC One, Lark Rise To Candleford, a love letter to a vanished corner of rural England and a heart-warming drama series teeming with wit, wisdom and romance.
Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, at the end of the 19th Century, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm workers, craftsmen and gentry, observing characters in loving, boisterous and competing communities of families, rivals, friends and neighbours.
This world is seen through the eyes of a teenage girl, Laura Timmins (Olivia Hallinan – Sugar Rush, Torchwood), as she leaves Lark Rise to start a new life under the wing of her cousin, the independent and effervescent Dorcas Lane (Julia Sawalha – Hornblower, Pride And Prejudice), who is Post Mistress at the local Post Office in Candleford.
Through them, viewers experience the force of friendship as they see each other through the best and worst of times. Lark Rise To Candleford is warm, funny, poignant, occasionally tragic but overall a celebration of the spirit of community.
Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction, says: "Bill Gallagher has created a strong, funny and heart-warming drama series from Flora Thompson's novel.
"His drama naturally displays the enduring beauty of the English countryside but, more than that, it displays the enduring power of human landscape: the comedy, the whimsy, the moments of pain and heartbreak, and the collective and courageous force of family, friends and neighbours that see our characters through the best and worst of times.
"The talent and strength of the assembled cast and production team pay tribute to the excellence of Bill's vision and scripts."
Kate Harwood, Head of Series and Serials, adds: "Lark Rise To Candleford, Flora Thompson's touching and personal memoir of her North Oxfordshire youth, was originally developed by BBC Drama Production as a conventional drama serial. Eventually, the idea came to find a different take on the book and to develop it as a longer running pre-watershed, returnable drama series.
"Happily the material responded wonderfully to this; as writer Bill Gallagher says, the books are crammed so full of stories that you can just shake the pages and another one falls out. But Flora Thompson's stories are very particular; they are anecdotal and personal and therefore need a dramatist's imagination and narrative skills to take them from a beautifully evoked idea and to turn them into a fully fledged, hour-long drama.
"For example, the opening story of the series, which tells of a dispute between the two communities that has to be resolved using some delicate and clever thinking, is one that is contained in no more than a few sentences in the book. Bill has taken that idea and turned it into a richly and touching narrative through which we launch Laura on her journey to Candleford and into her adult life."
Lark Rise To Candleford is produced by BBC Drama Production and written by Bill Gallagher (Conviction, Out Of The Blue, Wokenwell).
The producer is Grainne Marmion (The State Within) and the executive producers are Sue Hogg and Bill Gallagher.
Lark Rise To Candleford was written by Flora Thompson and first published in 1945.
Flora was born in 1876 at Juniper Hill in Oxfordshire, and lived in a small hamlet until she took up work in a nearby town, assisting at the Post Office, at the age of 14.
Lark Rise to Candleford is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the English countryside, written by Flora Thompson, and first published in that form in 1945. The trilogy includes the previously published stories Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941) and Candleford Green (1943).
The stories relate to three communities, a hamlet, the nearby village and the nearest town in Oxfordshire, England at the start of the 20th century. The stories are loosely based around Flora's childhood experiences.
She wrote a sequel Heatherley (c.1944) which was published posthumously.
Flora Jane Thompson (5 December 1876 – 21 May 1947) was an English novelist and poet famous for her semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, Lark Rise to Candleford.
She was born in Juniper Hill in north-east Oxfordshire, the eldest of six children of Albert and Emma Timms, a stonemason and nursemaid respectively. Her favourite brother, Edwin, was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Flora was educated at Cottisford and worked in Post Offices in south-east England until marrying John William Thompson in 1903, with whom she had two sons (the younger, Peter, later lost at sea in 1941) and a daughter.
Thompson benefited from good access to books when the the public library opened in Winton, in 1907. Not long after in 1911, she won an essay competition in 'The Ladies Companion' for a three hundred word essay on Jane Austen. Subsequently, she wrote extensively, publishing short stories and magazine and newspaper articles. She was a keen self-taught naturalist and many of her nature articles were anthologised in 1986.
Her most famous works are the Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, which she sent as essays to Oxford University Press in 1938 and were published soon after. She wrote a sequel Heatherley which was published posthumously. The books are a fictionalised, if autobiographical, social history of rural English life in the late 19th and early 20th century and are now considered minor classics.
Flora Thompson died in 1947 in Brixham, Devon.
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