Laughter on the Orient Express: Judi Dench tells BAZ BAMIGBOYE why she's working with Kenneth Branagh on film adaptation of Agatha Christie classic

Daily Mail
BAZ BAMIGBOYE
Updated October 20, 2017

Judi Dench would like her future contracts to include a clause stipulating that she will refuse to work with grumpy co-stars.

'I don't want to work with anyone who hasn't got a sense of humour,' she insisted, with a hint of merriment behind those blue eyes.

'It's essential! I simply am not interested in working with them if they're miserable by nature.

'It's like the froth on the top of Guinness. You have to have the froth, and then you get to the real thing.

You discover people through larks,' the actress told me, while explaining why she has worked with Kenneth Branagh ten times over the years.

'I always get into trouble with Ken — and I like that!'

The two pillars of the British acting establishment are together again in the Fox 70mm extravaganza of Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express.

Branagh directs, and also plays the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot; while Judi plays the imperious Princess Dragomiroff.

In the film, the Princess arrives with her personal maid (played by Olivia Colman) and two Shih Tzus.

'She's horrible to Olivia. She's a very autocratic princess. So bossy. And Russian. She's just rude; and you wouldn't want to work for her,' Judi said when we met in Soho.

We had the most glorious time,' she said, of her time on set with co-stars Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe, Michelle Pfeiffer and dancer Sergei Polunin, as well as newcomers Lucy Boynton and Tom Bateman.

'Not only that: he stayed in the hotel I use when I am up in London. He's ruined my reputation!'One reason why everyone got on so well, she told me, was because filming took place in the interior of a luxury train. 'You had to be part of the company, because nobody could get off!'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4998840/Judi-Dench-s-working-Kenneth-Branagh-AGAIN.html#ixzz4w9rLucCq
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Depp, Dench and Kenneth Branagh: Behind the scenes of the star-studded Murder on the Orient Express

Telegraph
 Sally Williams
19 OCTOBER 2017 • 7:00AM

Agatha Christie ‘had always been allergic’ to cinema adaptations of her books, her husband Max Mallowan was quoted as saying. ‘She didn’t like her characters to be portrayed on book covers either,’ says James Prichard, her great-grandson.

Christie, who wrote 66 detective novels between 1920 and 1976, translated into around 45 languages, is the most widely read novelist in history, with sales of more than two billion copies worldwide.

There have been 23 film adaptations of her books in the UK alone, not to mention the multiple TV series. And now we have Murder on the Orient Express. Directed by Kenneth Branagh (who also plays Belgian detective Hercule Poirot), it features a parade of towering greats from stage and screen including Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi.

The 2017 version, co-produced by Ridley Scott, with a screenplay by Michael Green (the writer of Blade Runner 2049 and Alien: Covenant)  sets up the classic whodunnit with 14 strangers boarding the long-distance  passenger train that connects Istanbul with Paris.

These include Caroline Hubbard, an American widow (Michelle Pfeiffer), the Russian Princess Dragomiroff (Judi Dench) and her maid, Hildegarde Schmidt (Olivia Colman).

A businessman named Ratchett (Johnny Depp) is murdered at night in the compartment next to Poirot. The train gets marooned in an avalanche (a snowdrift in the book) and the plot follows Poirot’s interrogation of each of the passengers in the hunt for the killer.

The appeal of the film is clear: stars are not being asked to play anything run-of-the-mill. They are showcased in sumptuous 1930s glamour, dressing for dinner (even on a train), and the cooks produce delicious  fancies such as walnut soufflés.

‘I liked the sense that I could let the audience escape into that world,’ says Branagh, ‘where the details of what the characters are touching, seeing, eating, drinking, wearing are a significant part of the pleasure.

‘We live in a world where everything is so transient and quick, it  seemed to me a period in which, from a piece of linen to a glass of water to an arrangement of flowers, there could be a way of evoking a parenthesis of calm in an incredibly rushed life.’

An ‘avid reader of crime fiction’, he last read the book years ago, but admits to being surprised when he reread it. ‘I’d forgotten how it worked out! ‘I liked the ensemble [nature] of it,’ he continues, ‘I like it being enclosed in snow, the claustrophobia. And it’s a tale that sums up the golden age of travel: a world in which you feel the miles under your feet.

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2017/10/19/depp-dench-kenneth-branagh-behind-scenes-star-studded-murder/

Behind the scenes with Kenneth Branagh (and a cast to die for) on a blockbusting remake of the Agatha Christie classic Murder on the Orient Express

Mail OnLine
By Clark Collis
PUBLISHED: 17:05 EDT, 14 October 2017 | UPDATED: 17:05 EDT, 14 October 2017

ALL ABOARD! AND WE MEAN ALL ABOARD! A GOODLY portion of planet Earth's most famous residents have gathered today at Longcross Studios outside London to shoot a scene set at Stamboul (now Istanbul) train station for director Sir Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (out Nov. 10).

Branagh, who also plays Christie's famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, is present and properly dressed in 1930s-era attire. So too are Star Wars heroine Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr., and British acting royalty Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi.

 There's more. In one corner of the soundstage, Josh Gad and Olivia Colman (Broadchurch) are discussing the Police Academy franchise; Penélope Cruz is gliding past the re-creation of a vintage train talking on her phone in Spanish; and Johnny Depp is ruminating to a reporter about the likelihood of his character's long brown coat being made out of leather. "I'm feeling like it's fake," he says—incorrectly, as the film's Oscar-winning costume designer, Alexandra Byrne (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), will later attest. But the most eye-catching sight is not a person but a thing: the fake mustache sported by Branagh.

The item is so extravagantly outsize it almost seems more alien face-hugger than facial fuzz. "When I saw it I was like, Holy moly!" says Ridley. "But this is a larger-than-life story, so why not make the mustache larger, too?"

 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-4970852/Agatha-Christie-s-Murder-Orient-Express.html#ixzz4vWgc0Tyj Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

THE GATHERING STORM, PART 1 AND 2 (ALBERT FINNEY, VANESSA REDGRAVE, TOM HIDDLESTON, DEREK JACOBI, HUGH BONNEVILLE...)

A love story offering an intimate look inside the marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill during a particularly troubled, though little-known, moment in their lives.

Anthony Hopkins & Ian McKellen Talk Tyrannical Directors, State Of TV & Finally Working Together On ‘The Dresser’

DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD
by Nancy Tartaglione
March 19, 2015 5:00pm



On the Ealing Studios lot, which once played host to Alec Guinness and the Ealing Comedies — and is now the residence of Downton Abbey — Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen have been shooting BBC/Starz’s upcoming The Dresser. This is the adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s classic play that’s produced by Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment. It’s the first time in many years that a play has been adapted in such a way for television. And it joins the two veteran stars together for the first time. It will air on BBC Two this year and on Starz in 2016.

Callender tells me it is likely the first project of a six-part series of single dramas that Playground is developing for television that he will produce with Sonia Friedman. I was on The Dresser set last week, speaking with the principals on such diverse topics as Hopkins’ distaste for theater acting thanks to “tyrannical directors” and McKellen’s belief that some television is currently “in the doldrums.”

In The Dresser, Hopkins plays an ailing actor known as Sir, and McKellen is his devoted backstage hand and dresser, Norman. It takes place on a fateful night in a small regional theater during World War II as a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. As the backstage situation reaches a crisis, it parallels the onstage struggle of Lear and his Fool. The play was inspired by Harwood’s experiences as a dresser for the distinguished British actor-manager Sir Donald Wolfit. Richard Eyre is directing. Emily Watson, Happy Valley‘s Sarah Lancashire, Everest’s Vanessa Kirby and Edward Fox, who also had a role in Peter Yates’ Oscar-nominated 1983 film version, are part of the supporting cast.

The small set of Sir’s dressing room and other parts of the backstage are closed off with a video village a few feet away. There are about 30 people milling about. Watson tells me, “There is so much history here, somewhere if you dig deep enough, the walls have got bales of hay in them.”

The craft services table is emblematic of British shoots. There are some sandwiches, mounds of teabags and three jars of Marmite. McKellen, I’m told, drinks Marmite with hot water in the mornings.



When I arrive, he, Hopkins, and Watson are shooting a scene where Norman, growing increasingly drunk over the course of the night, is regaling Sir on the reactions out front. The three actors clearly are reverent of the material, but there’s friendly banter in between takes when Hopkins says he had the recurring “actors’ dream” the night before of being onstage and forgetting one’s lines. He later tells me: “The dream is very real. I suppose what it is is that the subconscious mind regurgitates the mirror image. I’m meticulous about learning lines — I always have a dread about not knowing them, so I do know them.”

While learning his lines in California beginning last fall, Hopkins said he was “counting the days” until production started. “I had my face buried in the book all the time, much to the alarm of my wife (who said), ‘You’ve got to get out.’ But I loved it.”

Now, he says, “To do such a well-structured play and something I know — the insecurities the fears jealousy, paranoia, all of that. I had a dresser at the National Theatre who was one of the loneliest men I’ve ever met. He lived in East London and had nothing. Poor old guy. I remember everything. He’s dead and gone now, but I remember the loneliness of that guy. This is Norman.”

Hopkins didn’t last long on the boards when he was younger, saying he “skedaddled from the theater years ago.” What made him leave? “I couldn’t fit in, I just feel alien in companies. … I get bored after the second night. I’d think ‘Oh, God.’ So I escaped and went back to California.” The Dresser is particularly poignant because it brings back the “bleakness of life in those touring companies.” He toured with the National Theatre for four months in 1957, and it was a killer. “Some people thrive on (tours), but I couldn’t. You get the thing where you have the tyrannical directors screaming and shouting, and costume calls at 1 AM and being ridiculed. And, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I’m getting out of this; I’d rather do something else’.”

I asked him if he had come across tyrannical directors in film. “I don’t put up with them,” Hopkins said. “They keep out of my way. They don’t mess with me.” The Dresser, he said, is “a return, in a way, to a kind of pain-free visit to the theater.” And working with McKellen has been “extraordinary. … He’s a great actor to be with. He’s a great friend and very, very funny. We laugh all the time.”

The pair were both in Laurence Olivier’s company at the National Theatre many years ago, and each reminisces about the actors of the day — “All the old guys like Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud because we knew all of them, that’s a world I remember,” says Hopkins.

McKellen tells me, “We’ve worked out that I was (at the National) for nine months and I think about the day I left, he joined.” McKellen still regularly does plays, having stuck it out with such artists as Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Michael York, Maggie Smith and Joan Plowright, he reels off to me in his dressing room, which is peppered with The Dresser paraphernalia.

Working now with Hopkins, McKellen says: “If you had to pick one of the top actors of our time, you know Anthony Hopkins would have to be up there in any country. So to be close to him while he’s working has been a thrill.”

Watson echoes that there are days “when I really pinch myself; I can’t believe I’m here doing this with these guys.” Watson’s character, Her Ladyship, is Sir’s long-suffering wife and leading lady.


READ MORE HERE: http://deadline.com/2015/03/anthony-hopkins-ian-mckellen-the-dresser-set-1201395026/

James Corden and Benedict Cumberbatch lead the way as The Royal National Theatre celebrate 50 years on stage

MAIL ON LINE
By JASON CHESTER
PUBLISHED: 19:47 EST, 1 November 2013 | UPDATED: 03:53 EST, 2 November 2013



The Royal National Theatre celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on Saturday with a retrospective two-hour performance featuring an array of stars from stage and screen.

50 Years On Stage paid tribute to some of the historic venue’s finest moments during a two-hour compendium of live performances and archive footage, presided over by celebrated director Nichols Hyntner.

James Corden, Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dame Helen Mirren were amongst a cast of 100 actors to take to the legendary stage, where pivotal scenes from a selection of The National’s highlights were performed.

Amongst these were The History Boys – the award winning Alan Bennett play that helped turn Corden into a star when it was first performed at the venue in 2004.

Benedict Cumberbatch also featured in scene from Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern, while Dame Judi Dench made an appearance with Skyfall co-star Roy Kinnear for a segment from Shakespeare’s Anthony And Cleopatra.

Dame Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon and Adrian Lester also performed at the event, which was performed in front of TV cameras and will be broadcast on BBC Two at 9pm on Saturday evening.

The Royal National Theatre first opened in 1963 under the stewardship of Sir Laurence Olivier.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2483935/James-Corden-Benedict-Cumberbatch-lead-way-The-Royal-National-Theatre-celebrate-50-years-stage.html

Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi: National Theatre's 50th: the best shows from 1963-1973

THE TELEGRAPH

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013

By Dominic Cavendish

11:30AM BST 14 Oct 2013

The hope for a National Theatre stretches right back to the Victorian age but it wasn't until 1962 that the theatre's story officially began. After protracted discussions over funding, and a dismally slow construction pace, the decision was made to establish a National Theatre company without waiting for the theatre to be opened. In the interim, the company would perform at the Old Vic and in August 1962, the National's first artistic director was named as Laurence Olivier. The company's first performance (Hamlet) followed on 22 October 1963, and the National Theatre was born.



The Old Vic episode, though protracted, was in many ways glorious. Directors included William Gaskill, Franco Zeffirelli, Jonathan Miller and Olivier himself. The list of actors collected for Zeffirelli’s production of Much Ado about Nothing alone spelt magnificence – among them Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Albert Finney, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen. Having an actor-manager of Olivier’s stature at the helm made the National a base for the best of British theatre, as it was intended to be.To select 10 productions from that first decade is an invidious task – the choices are open to challenge. But to try and measure the scale of the National Theatre's achievement one must identify those shows it’s still worth talking about and summon them up from the dusty vaults of national memory. Away we go…

Although the National Theatre Company launched in its temporary home at the Old Vic in 1963 with a Hamlet starring Peter O’Toole and directed by Laurence Olivier, its first hour was not its finest. Far more significant was when Olivier, the company’s artistic director, stepped into the title role of Othello (in black-face) to electrifying effect the following year. “Nowhere else in the world could a more completely realised performance than his have been seen,” Simon Callow observed in his history of the NT, published in 2007. The production, which also starred Maggie Smith as Desdemona, was rendered into a film the following year.

As You Like It, directed by Clifford Williams, starring Ronald Pickup, Anthony Hopkins and Derek Jacobi; 1967

This all-male production was a box-office hit and a sign of more liberated times, although the revival had a troubled history. John Dexter initially proposed a more sexually provocative approach but his vision was so diluted at Olivier’s insistence that he resigned. Ronald Pickup starred as Rosalind, other cast members included Anthony Hopkins, Robert Stephens, Derek Jacobi and Jeremy Brett. The New York Times was effusive: "As You Like It is fantastic, one of the most dazzling, sheerly enjoyable Shakespearean productions I have ever seen." He praised Pickup: "Within a minute or two you forget that this lanky, touching figure is a man (although he makes no effort to disguise his voice) and you see him as a soul in love.”

The National Health, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Tom Baker and Jim Dale; 1969
Peter Nichols’s play collided the grim experience of those reaching the end of life in an NHS ward with a pastiche TV soap opera (Nurse Norton’s Affair); the result, shaped and directed by Blakemore, was a sensation that won the Evening Standard Best Play award. As Blakemore records in his memoir Stage Blood: “On one side of the stage… challenges were bravely met and tragedy averted; on the other death made its random and monotonous progress through the ward… Both Peter and I began to realise that we were on to something that maybe hadn’t been done on stage before.” The show marked a return to the NT’s popular health, after a slight dip in fortunes.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Laurence Olivier, 1971
Michael Billington in the Guardian was spellbound by this account of Eugene O’Neill's posthumously published autobiographical masterpiece, dominated as it was by the fading grandeur of Laurence Olivier in his last major role for the company: “Olivier’s James Tyrone is a massive performance moving from an initial nervy jocularity to a throttled, brick-red despair at his wife’s relapse to a thrilling, soul-baring intensity in his cups… For a genuinely great actor to play a nearly-great actor is the hardest technical feat of all: Olivier does it to perfection.” Of this highly popular production he added: “Such is the quality of acting and direction we seem to be not merely watching great drama but to be eavesdropping on life itself.”



READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10361968/National-Theatres-50th-the-best-shows-from-1963-1973.html

Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi - VICIOUS! (The Orgy)

 

Kenneth Branagh: lost Shakespearean? Kenneth Branagh seemed to give up on Shakespeare. But now he's come back to the playwright who made his name, says Dominic Cavendish. (TELEGRAPH)

By Dominic Cavendish, Theatre Critic 7:10AM BST  04 Jul 2013



The other day I found myself spending a fruitless hour pacing the backstreets of Manchester in the hope of stumbling across the as-yet-undisclosed deconsecrated church where Kenneth Branagh (Sir Kenneth since last November) will present his Macbeth as part of the city’s biennial International Festival, which is almost upon us.

The reason wasn't so much journalistic as nostalgic. I hadn't managed to bag a ticket in advance – all availability went in nine minutes – and the fancy possessed me that perhaps if I laid eyes on the building I’d get closer to the spirit of the project.

Closer, if I’m honest, to Ken. Almost unwittingly I found myself succumbing to something I hadn’t experienced for 25 years: what was once known as Branagh-mania. The reflex action whirled me back to my teenage self, queuing outside the Phoenix Theatre, fresh out of school – an age when to be young was pretty groovy but to see the talk of the town giving his Hamlet was very heaven.

In 1988, when you thought of Branagh, you thought of the Bard – and marveled at how sexy, exciting and fresh-minted he had made the “sweet swan of Avon” seem. The Belfast-born boy-wonder, who blazed a self-radicalized trail out of Reading, where his family moved after the start of the Troubles, made those of us half in love with theatre fully smitten, and rather doting on him, too.

Aged 23 and barely out of the swaddling clothes of drama school, he had seized the crowning role of Henry V at the RSC, bestriding its stages like the proverbial colossus – even daring to consult Prince Charles about the role – only to decide afterwards that it would be better if he could run his own company, and lead from the front.

Such certainty, such vigour, such chutzpah! He was the model of the new can-do age while harking back to the mythical world of Olivier (with whom he was ceaselessly compared) and all the great knights fighting the good fight for immortal nights out with every syllable of perfectly enunciated, rapier-sharp Shakespearean utterance.

He hung out with the right crowd – Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Richard Briers, Geraldine McEwen. In fact he did more than just hang out with them, he incorporated them into his gang, the Renaissance Theatre Company. The company started its 1988 campaign in Birmingham before sweeping into the West End. Critics and audiences alike adored the company’s Much Ado – in which he twinkled mischievously as Benedick opposite Samantha Bond’s foxy Beatrice.

They delighted at As You Like It, in which he dazzled as the fool Touchstone – the Guardian’s Michael Billington declaring “Mr Branagh actually makes you wait impatiently for every appearance of Shakespeare’s unfunniest clown”. And they kissed the hem of his Hamlet, in which his dazzling Great Dane, as the Financial Times’ reviewer wryly noted, “went to his death with a sardonic dash worthy of Douglas Fairbanks, blond hair kept at bay by the sword-free hand”.




READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/william-shakespeare/10120995/Kenneth-Branagh-lost-Shakespearean.html

'Downton Abbey' Season 4 Sets PBS Return Date, PLUS Last Tango In Halifax by Jace Lacob May 14, 2013 10:15 AM EDT THE DAILY BEAST

American fans of the Crawley clan can finally mark their calendars: Season 4 of Downton Abbey will kick off on PBS' Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, January 5, 2014.

Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton announced the official U.S. airdate for Season 4 of the award-winning period drama Tuesday at the PBS Annual Meeting. Downton's fourth season will run for eight weeks, from January 5 to February 23, 2014, roughly the time timeframe as its third season, which aired in the U.S. earlier this year. (In the U.K., Season 4 will air this autumn on ITV.)

"Masterpiece fans will not be disappointed: Julian [Fellowes] has done another brilliant job," Eaton wrote in an email to The Daily Beast, "this time, portraying the Downton family moving on from the tragedies of last season."

Those tragedies include the death of heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and youngest daughter Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay). The duo—along with Siobhan Finneran (who played devious maid Miss O'Brien)—will not be returning for a fourth installment of the Julian Fellowes-created Downton Abbey, the highest-rated drama in PBS history. A stunning 24 million total viewers tuned into Season 3 of Downton Abbey, and finale on February 17, 2012 was the top-rated show on television for the evening, beating all primetime broadcast and cable programming.

Season 4 of Downton Abbey will feature Shirley MacLaine reprising her role as Martha Levinson, along with several new actors joining the cast: Tom Cullen, Nigel Harman, Dame Harriet Walter, Joanna David, Julian Ovendon, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and Gary Carr, to name a few.

PBS also announced the premiere of six-episode dramedy Last Tango in Halifax on September 8 and Season 3 of Call the Midwife, which will return to PBS in 2014. The former series become one of BBC One's top 10 highest-rated dramas for 2012, with an audience of 7.3 million viewers.

PBS described Last Tango in Halifax—which stars Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid, Sarah Lancashire, Nicola Walker, Tony Gardner, Dean Andrews, Nina Sosanya, and Ronni Ancona—as "an uplifting comedy/drama about romance and second chances. Full of zesty humor, great characters and glorious dialogue, it’s about timeless love in a modern setting."

READ MORE: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/downton-abbey-season-4-sets-pbs-return-date.html

Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi in new British Comedy 'VICIOUS"

Two of my favorite British actors - two of the finest actors in the world - playing a couple in 

VICIOUS

ITV YOUTUBE

RIPPER STREET: 2013 BAFTA TV Award Nominations Announced: ‘Ripper Street,’ ‘The Graham Norton Show’ By staff | Posted on April 9th, 2013

BBC America is proud to announce two of our own have been nominated for BAFTAs.

The 2013 BAFTA Television Award nominations are in. BBC America’s thriller Ripper Street has received a nomination in the drama category; and Graham Norton, who will be hosting the award ceremony on Sunday, May 12, has received two nominations for his entertainment chat show The Graham Norton Show.

Benedict Cumberbatch is notably absent from the list while his Parade’s End co-star Rebecca Hall was nominated for leading actress.

Did your favorite show or actor/actress make the list? … maybe you’ve come across some new programs and talent to check out?!

Here is the complete list of nominations.

Leading Actor:

Ben Whishaw – The Hollow Crown (Richard II)

Derek Jacobi – Last Tango In Halifax

Sean Bean – Accused (Tracie’s Story)

Toby Jones – The Girl

Leading Actress:

Anne Reid – Last Tango In Halifax

Rebecca Hall – Parade’s End

Sheridan Smith – Mrs Biggs

Sienna Miller – The Girl

Supporting Actor:

Peter Capaldi – The Hour

Stephen Graham – Accused (Tracie’s Story)

Harry Lloyd – The Fear

Simon Russell Beale – The Hollow Crown (Henry IV Part 2)

Supporting Actress:

Anastasia Hille – The Fear

Imelda Staunton – The Girl

Olivia Colman – Accused (Mo’s Story)

Sarah Lancashire – Last Tango In Halifax

Entertainment Program:

Alan Carr for Alan Carr: Chatty Man

Ant and Dec for I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!

Graham Norton for The Graham Norton Show

Sarah Millican for The Sarah Millican Show

Female Performance in a Comedy Program:

Jessica Hynes for Twenty Twelve

Julia Davis for Hunderby

Miranda Hart for Miranda

Olivia Colman for Twenty Twelve

Male Performance in a Comedy Program:

Greg Davies for Cuckoo

Hugh Bonneville for Twenty Twelve

Peter Capaldi for The Thick of It

Steve Coogan for Welcome to the Places of My Life

Single Drama:

Everyday

The Girl

Murder

Richard II (Hollow Crown)

Mini-Series:

Accused

Mrs Biggs

Parade’s End

Room At The Top

Drama Series:

Last Tango In Halifax

Ripper Street

Scott And Bailey

Silk

READ MORE: http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2013/04/2013-bafta-tv-award-nominations-announced-ripper-street-and-the-graham-norton-show/

Out Actors Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi Starring In Gay Sitcom “Vicious Old Queens” (QUEERTY)

Britain’s ITV has ordered a new sitcom starring out actors Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen as an elderly gay couple.

Vicious Old Queens will feature the legendary actors as a catty couple living in the posh London neighborhood of Covent Garden. Six 30-minute episodes are being produced by Gary Janetti, a former writer and executive producer for Family Guy and Will and Grace. “No one can quite believe ITV have managed to get Sir Ian on board,” a source told The Star on Sunday. “Brit stars don’t get much bigger than him. It’s a great coup  to get these two.”

READ MORE: http://www.queerty.com/out-actors-ian-mckellen-derek-jacobi-starring-in-gay-sitcom-vicious-old-queens-20121029/

Happy Birthday Clive Owen - 3 October, 1964

Oops - almost forgot the big guy's birthday.

Clive Owen is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991. 

Born: October 3, 1964 (age 48), Keresley

Height: 6' 2" (1.89 m)

Spouse: Sarah-Jane Fenton (m. 1995)

Siblings: Lee Owen, Alan Owen

Children: Hannah Owen, Eve Owen

One of my all time favorite movies - the trailer for GOSFORD PARK (written my Julian Fellowes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfokH6v4aOM

The 100 British Actors and Actresses of All Time by The_Etiquette created 22 Jan 2011 | last updated - 23 Jan 2011

Agree with most of these, perhaps not this order however.  AND, where is Benedict Cumberbatch? Tom Hiddleston? Matthew Macfadyen?  Sir Kenneth Branagh??? and so many more...


HERE ARE THE FIRST TEN, ACCORDING TO IMDB:

1.

Laurence Olivier
Actor, Rebecca
He could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Laurence Olivier in 1927. One of Olivier's earliest successes as a Shakespearean actor on the London stage came in 1935 when he played "Romeo" and "Mercutio" in alternate performances of "Romeo and Juliet" with John Gielgud...

2.
Maggie Smith
Actress, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her father was a teacher at Oxford University and her mother worked as a secretary. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974...

3.
Judi Dench
Actress, Casino Royale
Attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance in which she appeared with her husband...

4.
Ian McKellen
Actor, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
On May 25th, 1939, in the town of Burnley, Lancashire, in the north of England, Ian Murray McKellen was born. His parents, Denis and Margery, soon moved with Ian and his sister Jean to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theater...

5.
Michael Caine
Actor, The Dark Knight
Born Maurice Micklewhite in London, Michael Caine was the son of a fish-market porter and a charlady. He left school at 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat. Upon his return to England he gravitated toward the theater and got a job as an assistant stage manager...

6.
John Gielgud
Actor, Gandhi
Sir John Gielgud is a highly distinguished and prolific performer who is considered to be one of the finest actors of his generation. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Gielgud played his first Hamlet in 1930 and quickly established himself as one of the most eminent Shakespearean interpreters of his time...

7.
Helen Mirren
Actress, The Queen
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlote Hospital, in North London to Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda Rogers and Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many titles, all the way up to Broadway.

8.
Michael Gambon
Actor, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
After joining the National Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier, Gambon went on to appear in a number of leading roles in plays written by Alan Ayckbourn. His career was catapulted in 1980 when he took the lead role in John Dexter's production of "Galileo". Since then...

9.
Peter Ustinov
Actor, Spartacus
Peter Ustinov was two times Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist, and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions. He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov on April 16, 1921, in Swiss Cottage, London...

10.
David Niven
Actor, The Pink Panther
David Niven was named after the Saint's Day on which he was born, St. David, patron Saint of Wales. He attended Stowe School and Sandhurst Military Academy and served for two years in Malta with the Highland Light Infantry. At the outbreak of World War II, although a top-line star, he re-joined the army (Rifle Brigade).

SEE THE REST - WHAT NAMES ARE MISSING IN YOUR OPINION?
http://www.imdb.com/list/JCunN7-wkME/

Four of the finest minutes in the movies - Kenneth Branagh, Henry V

     
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1GDRx-F1C0&feature=player_embedded

Thanks to Gayle Mills for reminding me about this.  I cry whenever I watch it. Kenneth Branagh in Henry V, Battle of Agincourt.

‘Birdsong,’ Eddie Redmayne could appeal to ‘Downton Abbey’ fans Masterpiece, PBS, WUCF — posted by hal boedeker on April, 21 2012 9:33 AM (ORLANDO SENTINEL)

How to hold fans until “Downton Abbey” returns in January?

“Masterpiece” is working furiously on that challenge. The PBS series has a strong candidate in ”Birdsong,” a lavish, two-part romance that airs at 9 p.m. this Sunday and April 29. Like the second season of “Downton,” “Birdsong” unfolds during World War I. Based on Sebastian Faulks’ novel, “Birdsong” follows British Lt. Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne).

As he struggles to survive harrowing battles in 1916, he thinks back to his love for a married woman, Isabelle Azaire (Clemence Poesy) in 1910. “Masterpiece” has long been a showcase for actors such as Helen Mirren in ”Prime Suspect,” Derek Jacobi in “I, Claudius” and Maggie Smith in “Downton.”

”Masterpiece” also has bolstered young performers, notably Keira Knightley, who played Lara in a 2002 version of “Doctor Zhivago.” “Birdsong” should win new fans for Redmayne, who played the young admirer in “My Week With Marilyn,” works as a Burberry model and won a Tony for the play “Red.”

“Birdsong” reveals Redmayne’s range: He conveys an appealing boyishness in the 1910 sections, and in the 1916 portions, he looks aged and battered by war and memories.

READ MORE:  http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2012/04/birdsong-eddie-redmayne-could-appeal-to-downton-abbey-fans.html

Derek Jacobi: PBS’ ‘I, Claudius’ Still Captivates With its Taut Drama (DAILY BEAST)

AUTHOR Jace Lacob
Mar 27, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

Thirty-five years ago, PBS captivated audiences with the blood-and-sex-laden ancient-Roman soap I Claudius, which is still influential. A new DVD version comes out Tuesday.I, Claudius celebrates the 35th anniversary of its U.S. broadcast this year.

A rapt and devoted audience consumed this spellbinding ancient-Rome period drama when it first aired in 1976 on the BBC in the U.K., and in 1977 on PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre.

Starring Derek Jacobi as the titular character and featuring some of the best boldface names in British acting circles, the Emmy Award–winning show—which ran 12 episodes and is today being released as a remastered five-disc DVD box set—is a multigenerational saga about the emperors of ancient Rome and the conspiracies, intrigues, murders, and madness that stood in their shadows.


READ MORE:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/27/pbs-i-claudius-still-captivates-with-its-taut-drama.html

Matthew Macfadyen to take lead role in eight part "Ripper Street" (Radio Times)

War, ghosts and HGV drivers: new BBC1 dramas announced for 2012

Plus Matthew Macfadyen to take lead role in Ripper Street

 

 

Written By

Jack Seale

5:05 PM, 11 January 2012

BBC drama controller Ben Stephenson today unveiled details of five new programmes to air on BBC1 this year - which he said would "up the scale and pace of our output in order to secure the next generation of mainstream hits, risk-taking and originality".

Leading the way is War of the Roses, a dramatisation by Emma Frost (Shameless) of the Cousins' War novels by Philippa Gregory. A serial focusing on the women who shaped and were affected by England’s civil wars of the 15th century, War of the Roses was described by Stephenson as "one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted by the BBC".

New comedy drama is to come in the form of Truckers, a six-parter by William Ivory (Made in Dagenham) about a Midlands haulage firm and its "rogues' gallery" of employees, struggling to survive the recession and to balance their home and work lives.

Stephenson also announced three seasonal dramas. Halloween will bring The Secret of Crickley Hall, a three-part version of James Herbert's bestselling ghost story. Christmas 2012 will offer The Moonstone, a dramatisation of Wilkie Collins' ground-breaking detective novel, and Room on the Broom, an animation by the makers of The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child, based on another of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s books.

Despite what might seem to be a preponderance of traditional, stately adaptations of respected literature, Stephenson claimed his new slate showcased the corporation's versatility. "The unique nature of our funding means that only BBC1 drama can bring you this kind of quality and range to ensure there really is something for everyone," he said. "BBC1 showcases the biggest and broadest range of what mainstream drama can offer of any channel in the world. BBC1 is the home of big characters, big emotions and big stories - and it is these three components that will define drama on the channel over the next few years."

The channel also announced casting details for several other forthcoming dramas. Matthew Macfadyen is to take the lead in Ripper Street, an "extraordinary" eight-parter about a police division trying to keep order in the East End of London in 1889, during the aftermath of the "Ripper" murders.

Finally, Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid will lead the cast of Antony and Cleopatra, Sally Wainwright’s romantic comedy drama about childhood sweethearts reunited after 60 years. Also in the cast are Sarah Lancashire, Nicola Walker, Tony Gardner, Dean Andrews and Ronni Ancona.


http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-01-11/war,-ghosts-and-hgv-drivers-new-bbc1-dramas-announced-for-2012

Matthew Macfadyen, others, casting news (Guardian)

BBC1 to screen epic War of the Roses drama

BBC puts emphasis on drama as it announces new series for year ahead

• Tara Conlan
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 10.30 EST
• Article history

 

The BBC is hoping to carry on from the success of The Tudors (pictured). Photograph: BBC

Having tackled the Tudors, the BBC is taking on the Yorks and the Lancasters in what promises to be an epic BBC1 drama about the War of the Roses.

In a twist on the male-dominated lens through which history is frequently viewed, the epic serial about one of the bloodiest periods in English history will be told from the point of view of powerful women who "shaped their men and who shaped history in the process".

They include queens, mothers, lovers and "witches" and the drama reminds viewers that at the time women could still be burned at the stake for sorcery.

The War of the Roses is an adaptation of Philippa Gregory's best-selling series of books The Cousin's War and is part of a renewed focus on BBC1 drama.

The BBC said that it is yet to cast the drama or decide the number of episodes.

Witches are also the subject of BBC1's traditional festive treat for children.

Following the success of airing author Julia Donaldson's children's books The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child in the past two festive seasons, BBC1 and Magic Light Pictures are bringing another one to life this December called Room on the Broom.

Also on the cards for Christmas is a three-part adaptation of what TS Eliot called "the first and greatest of English detective novels", Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone.

The drama follows Sergeant Cuff of Scotland Yard as he tries to uncover a crime involving the theft of an Indian jewel by a British army officer at the storming of a Maharajah's palace.

Halloween will be marked by BBC1 with a three-part drama taken from James Herbert's haunted house chiller The Secret of Crickley Hall.

BBC1 will also feature new contemporary dramas with Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning, announcing the arrival of Truckers.

Written by William Ivory and made by Company Pictures, the six-part series follows a group of men and women who work for the same haulage company driving 40-ton articulated lorries across the Midlands.

The BBC described it as "a warm, funny, bitter-sweet character-driven show about getting by in difficult times".

Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in London, Stephenson revealed that Sean Bean, Anna Maxwell Martin and Stephen Graham will be joining the cast of the next series of Jimmy McGovern's Accused.

He also said that Sir Derek Jacobi and Sarah Lancashire will be appearing in writer Sally Wainwight's new series about rekindled love, called Antony and Cleopatra.

Antony and Cleopatra is actor Derek Jacobi's first TV drama series since he appeared in ITV's monk drama Cadfael in the mid-1990s.

Other casting announcements made by Stephenson included Matthew Macfadyen taking the lead role in Tiger Aspect's new Jack the Ripper drama Ripper Street and Hayley Atwell to star in William Boyd's Restless.

In addition, Ben Miller island crime series Death in Paradise is being recommissioned for a second eight-part series and Denis Lawson is joining the cast of veteran detective show New Tricks.

Stephenson revealed that Denis Lawson, who is best known for his role of Holby City and appeared in the BBC's adaptation of Bleak House, is to become the new lead of BBC1 drama New Tricks. Lawson replaces former Likely Lads actor James Bolam who is leaving the show.

"2012 is a massive year for drama on BBC1 as Danny Cohen [controller of BBC1] and I up the scale and pace of our output in order to secure the next generation of mainstream hits, risk taking and originality," said Stephenson. "The unique nature of our funding means that only BBC1 drama can bring you this kind of quality and range to ensure there really is something for everyone."

He added: "I believe BBC1 showcases the biggest and broadest range of what mainstream drama can offer of any channel in the world. This year alone will see BBC1 launching over 20 new titles, as well as bringing back over 15 returning series."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/11/bbc1-war-of-the-roses-drama?newsfeed=true