Doctors, Coronation Street and EastEnders among credits of actor whose career included working with RSC and the National Theatre
Stephen Greif, who appeared in Blake’s 7 and The Crown, has died aged 78, his representatives said.
The actor had an extensive career on stage and screen and appeared in other series including Doctors, Coronation Street, Tales of the Unexpected and EastEnders.
Continue reading...Susan Moffat and Aida Haughton explain how their play My Thousand Year Old Land was given a universal humanity by using raw, real-life testimony
Three women – Pravda (meaning “justice”), Istina (“truth”), and Nada (“hope”) – sit around a table, grinding coffee and telling stories. Around them on stage are men’s boots, belts and a hat. The men are no longer here but killed in war.
It’s what writer and director Susan Moffat calls “the presence of absence”. In the play My Thousand Year Old Land (A Song for BiH), which Moffat wrote alongside Bosnian war survivor Aida Haughton, we follow three women whose lives are changed by the deaths of their communities’ men in the 1990s conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They find themselves taking on the typically male roles in the family, from tilling the fields to feeding cockerels.
Continue reading...Agent pays tribute to ‘unique talent loved by many’ who played Gladys Pugh in BBC comedy series
The Hi-de-Hi! actor Ruth Madoc has died aged 79 after a fall.
Madoc became a household name playing “chief yellowcoat” Gladys Pugh in the BBC One sitcom. The show ran for eight years from 1980 and was set in a fictional holiday camp, Maplins, during the 1950s.
Continue reading...Actor’s gesture draws gasps and cheers at charity auction, held after a performance of Jackman’s hit musical The Music Man
Nicole Kidman has surprised both Broadway audiences and Hugh Jackman by bidding US$100,000 (A$150,000, £83,000) for a hat signed by Jackman after a performance of her former co-star’s musical The Music Man.
During an auction for the charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids after the performance on Saturday, Kidman made her presence known by shouting her bid of $100,000 for the hat, which led to gasps and cheers in the crowd, then a standing ovation.
Continue reading...Whodunnit running in the West End since 1952, interrupted only by Covid, will open in New York in 2023
The world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap, is to finally make its Broadway debut. The announcement was made on Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the London production of Agatha Christie’s whodunnit.
The only surviving piece of the original set from 1952, a mantelpiece clock, will be lent from London for the run in New York when it opens in 2023. The play will be co-produced by The Mousetrap’s UK producer, Adam Spiegel, and US producer Kevin McCollum, whose credits include Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and the Broadway outings of the British am-dram spoof The Play That Goes Wrong and the musical Six.
Continue reading...‘Fierce, feminist’ show from Francesca Moody is written by former Grange Hill actors Ricky Simmonds and Simon Vaughan and tells an ‘almost true’ story
A musical about Silvio Berlusconi that is described as “Evita on acid”, written by two former Grange Hill stars and features a song called My Weekend With Vladimir is to be staged in London next year.
Entitled Berlusconi, it is billed as an “almost true story” and produced by Francesca Moody who is best known for her success with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. The musical depicts the three-time former Italian PM on the eve of the verdict in his trial for tax fraud as he looks back on his rise and fall and resolves to write an autobiographical opera. His story is then told through the eyes of three women: Ilda Boccassini, the Milan magistrate known as Ilda the Red who investigated him; Berlusconi’s second wife, the actor Veronica Lario, who left him in 2009 after nearly 20 years of marriage; and the character of a journalist who is based on real people. “It places a fierce feminist lens on him,” said Moody of the musical. “These women are telling their story.”
Continue reading...Adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel will premiere at Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in April
A stage production of a poignant novel about the death of William Shakespeare’s son from plague is to have its world premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon next April.
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell, was published in March 2020, just as the world locked down in response to the Covid pandemic. It tells the story of a family racked by grief at the loss of the 11-year-old, focusing on everyday domestic detail while never naming the boy’s father.
Continue reading...Producer says trial asked questions about boundaries between privacy and celebrity and what it is to be a Wag
A play about the “Wagatha Christie” trial is to be staged in the West End by the producers behind Agatha Christie’s seminal drama Witness for the Prosecution.
Vardy v Rooney: the Wagatha Christie Trial, adapted from the original high court transcripts by Liv Hennessy and directed by Lisa Spirling, brings the legal battle between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney to life for one night only this autumn.
Continue reading...The heritage building’s floor will become an indoor beach for an award-winning opera – one of a few architectural landmarks that will get a new life this summer
Twenty-six tonnes of sand will be shipped into Sydney town hall as part of the 2023 Sydney festival, with the heritage-listed building transformed into a faux beach for an award-winning opera starring 79 people and a dog.
The program for the annual festival, announced today, will amplify stories from Indigenous and female-identifying creatives next year. Led by artistic director Olivia Ansell for the second time, it will champion climate action, marginalised voices and the rediscovery of underused spaces in the city – including Harry Seidler’s mushroom-shaped building in Martin Place, which will be turned into a 1970s-themed bar and live music hub, with audiences invited to stay in the retro hotel rooms above.
Continue reading...Former judge appointed to investigate claims prominent dance schools have rigged competitions
The ostensibly quaint world of Irish dancing has been rocked by allegations of competition fixing and cheating, with some parents and teachers saying there is a code of omertà akin to The Godfather and The Sopranos.
The Irish Dancing Commission, a governing body known in Irish as An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG), has appointed a former judge to investigate claims that prominent dance schools and teachers have rigged competitions, it emerged this week.
Continue reading...Sydney Theatre Company’s announcement of the work, written by Joanna Murray-Smith, aligns with 10-year anniversary of former PM’s misogyny speech
A new one-woman play focusing on the life of Australia’s first and only female prime minister, Julia Gillard, will debut on stage next year.
The play Julia, written by Joanna Murray-Smith, one of the country’s most prominent playwrights, has been billed as a highlight of the Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) 2023 season, and will feature actor and Play School presenter Justine Clarke in the eponymous role.
Continue reading...Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey – the first woman to be appointed permanently in the role – take up their posts in June
Michael Billington: An inspired duo to lead the RSC – with an immense task
The Royal Shakespeare Company has appointed two people to be co-artistic directors for the first time in four decades.
Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey – the first woman to be permanently appointed artistic director at the RSC – will take up their post in June next year.
Continue reading...Joke by joke, standup sensation Sherihan El Hadwa is challenging lazy stereotypes about victimhood
On a small stage in Tulkarm, a city in the north of the occupied West Bank, Sherihan El Hadwa emerges from the wings to a Palestinian pop song. Dancing and waving the long white cane she uses to navigate the world, the visually impaired comedian already has her audience laughing and clapping along to the music.
Hadwa did not have an obvious route into standup comedy, and the many difficulties of life as a disabled woman in the Palestinian territories are not a straightforwardly humorous topic.
Continue reading...Broadway’s longest-running musical never fully recovered from the pandemic shutdown and will close next February
The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway’s longest-running show, is scheduled to close in February 2023.
The musical – a fixture on Broadway since 1988, weathering recessions, war and cultural shifts – will play its final performance on Broadway on 18 February, a spokesperson said on Friday. The closure will come less than a month after its 35th anniversary. It will conclude with an eye-popping 13,925 performances.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Adrian Noble offers advice for directors who are often ‘rude, look at iPhones, run late and don’t apologise’
Actors must endure a “litany of misery” when auditioning for roles and the process must be improved, according to a former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Adrian Noble, whose casts have included Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi, said “every actor in the world” has their own “horror stories”.
Continue reading...After Covid thwarted two attempts to bring out Christian Spuck’s acclaimed Messa da Requiem, the festival has finally announced it as next year’s centrepiece
For Adelaide festival’s 2023 opera centrepiece a cast of almost 200 singers, dancers and musicians will take the stage under the direction of one of the world’s most celebrated choreographers.
Dance will be foregrounded in Messa da Requiem: the celebrated production of Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece Requiem by the German choreographer Christian Spuck, which debuted in Zurich in 2016.
Continue reading...Stand-up comic Red Richardson on his pedigree comedy childhood
Driving Rik Mayall around would be entertaining work for anyone, but for the young Red Richardson, the job he had in his 20s was the continuation of a childhood bond.
Mayall, who died suddenly in 2014 at the age of 56, was a near neighbour in South Devon, but he was also Richardson’s father’s close friend.
Continue reading...Measures aim to ensure safety, pay transparency and anti-harassment and discrimination policies
The performing arts and entertainment trade union Equity has launched a comedian’s charter in an effort to ensure good working practices and the safety of performers.
Developed by the union’s comedians’ network, the measures included in the charter “will ensure pay transparency, a safe working environment, late-night safety, and anti-harassment and discrimination policies”, according to Equity.
Continue reading...The award-winning writer, whose hit musical originally opened on Broadway in the late 60s, died in New York City of cardiorespiratory arrest
James Rado, the award-winning co-creator of Hair, has died at the age of 90.
The writer, whose hit musical launched songs such as Aquarius and Let the Sunshine In, died peacefully in New York City surrounded by family. The cause of death was cardiorespiratory arrest, as confirmed by longtime friend, publicist Merle Frimark.
Continue reading...Comedian says he was asked to explain context of gag to investigating officers, and will keep it in his show
The comedian Joe Lycett has said he was investigated by the police after an audience member made a complaint about a joke in one of his shows.
In a post on Instagram, he revealed that he was asked to explain the context of the gag and that the authorities have now closed the case.
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