Murray Melvin, a British actor known for his roles in The Phantom of the Opera, A Taste of Honey, Torchwood and Barry Lyndon, died Friday. He was 90.
His rep Thomas Bowington confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Melvin died at St. Thomas’ hospital in London.
“He was one of my closest friends and will be missed by so many of us who had the privilege to know him,” Kerry Kyriacos Michael, a London-bade creative director and producer, wrote on Twitter Saturday.
Born on Aug. 10, 1932, in London, Melvin made his acting debut in 1957 with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop Company in a production of Macbeth at the Theatre Royal Stratford.
After he made his film debut in 1960 in The Risk, he went on to land roles in The Phantom of the Opera, Torchwood and Barry Lyndon. But it was his role as gay textile design student Geoffrey Ingham in A Taste of Honey,...
His rep Thomas Bowington confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Melvin died at St. Thomas’ hospital in London.
“He was one of my closest friends and will be missed by so many of us who had the privilege to know him,” Kerry Kyriacos Michael, a London-bade creative director and producer, wrote on Twitter Saturday.
Born on Aug. 10, 1932, in London, Melvin made his acting debut in 1957 with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop Company in a production of Macbeth at the Theatre Royal Stratford.
After he made his film debut in 1960 in The Risk, he went on to land roles in The Phantom of the Opera, Torchwood and Barry Lyndon. But it was his role as gay textile design student Geoffrey Ingham in A Taste of Honey,...
- 4/16/2023
- by Carly Thomas
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Feature documentary “The Ghost of Richard Harris,” which premieres Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, looks to answer the question: “Who was Richard Harris?” The film also contains the revelation that Harris was offered the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, but chose to take the part of Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” franchise instead.
Variety spoke to director Adrian Sibley and Richard Harris’ son Jared Harris – a distinguished actor himself, and one of the originators of the project – about how the documentary came to be made.
Sibley first broached the subject of making a film about Richard Harris some 20 years ago with the man himself, who responded: “I’ll do it, but only if I can tell the truth half the time,” Jared Harris recalls.
“This Sporting Life”
Sibley liked this idea but the BBC – who he pitched it to – were less keen.
Variety spoke to director Adrian Sibley and Richard Harris’ son Jared Harris – a distinguished actor himself, and one of the originators of the project – about how the documentary came to be made.
Sibley first broached the subject of making a film about Richard Harris some 20 years ago with the man himself, who responded: “I’ll do it, but only if I can tell the truth half the time,” Jared Harris recalls.
“This Sporting Life”
Sibley liked this idea but the BBC – who he pitched it to – were less keen.
- 9/3/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Elfin Rita Tushingham makes a smash film debut as Shelagh Delaney's dispirited working class teen, on her own in Manchester and unprepared for the harsh truths of life. It's one of the best of the British New Wave. A Taste of Honey Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 829 1961 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Paul Danquah, Murray Melvin, Robert Stephens. Cinematography Walter Lassally Film Editor Anthony Gibbs Original Music John Addison Written by Tony Richardson and Shelagh Delaney adapted from her stage play Produced and directed by Tony Richardson
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The British New Wave got a real shot in the arm with 1961's A Taste of Honey. A stubbornly realistic drama about life in the lower working classes of Manchester, it was adapted from a near-revolutionary play by Shelagh Delaney, produced by Joan Littlewood. Here in...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The British New Wave got a real shot in the arm with 1961's A Taste of Honey. A stubbornly realistic drama about life in the lower working classes of Manchester, it was adapted from a near-revolutionary play by Shelagh Delaney, produced by Joan Littlewood. Here in...
- 8/15/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“Everything But The Kitchen Sink”
By Raymond Benson
In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.
Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working...
By Raymond Benson
In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.
Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working...
- 8/13/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
A pure-gold Savant favorite, Sir Richard Attenborough's first feature as director is a stylized pacifist epic of the insane tragedy of WW1, told through contemporary songs, with the irreverent lyrics given them by the soldiers themselves. And one will not want to miss a young Maggie Smith's music hall performance -- luring young conscripts to doom in the trenches. It's the strangest pacifist film ever, done in high style. Oh! What a Lovely War DVD The Warner Archive Collection 1969 / Color / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 144 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 16.99 Starring: Too many to name, see below. Cinematography Gerry Turpin Production Design Donald M. Ashton Art Direction Harry White Choreography Eleanor Fazan Film Editor Kevin Connor Original Music Alfred Ralston Written by Len Deighton from the musical play by Joan Littlewood from the radio play by Charles Chilton Produced by Richard Attenborough, Brian Duffy, Len Deighton Directed...
- 2/23/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Coen brothers' new film about a 1960s folk singer in Greenwich Village is a reminder of how authenticity became the rod that folk music made for its own back
The new film by the Coen brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis, evokes Greenwich Village at the beginning of the American folk boom. The date is February 1961. Metropolitan young Americans sit in smoky clubs listening reverently to music that they believe is purer, more honest and more heartfelt and therefore more elevating than the commercial mainstream of Sinatra, Buddy Holly and Doris Day. Folk music is still mainly a process of discovery and renewal rather than invention; singers tend to see themselves as curators of tradition. Lines such as: "Here's a song I first heard Leadbelly sing," remain the staple fare of introductions in a form that awaits the great singer-songwriter. Bob Dylan has just arrived in town but is still a...
The new film by the Coen brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis, evokes Greenwich Village at the beginning of the American folk boom. The date is February 1961. Metropolitan young Americans sit in smoky clubs listening reverently to music that they believe is purer, more honest and more heartfelt and therefore more elevating than the commercial mainstream of Sinatra, Buddy Holly and Doris Day. Folk music is still mainly a process of discovery and renewal rather than invention; singers tend to see themselves as curators of tradition. Lines such as: "Here's a song I first heard Leadbelly sing," remain the staple fare of introductions in a form that awaits the great singer-songwriter. Bob Dylan has just arrived in town but is still a...
- 1/18/2014
- by Ian Jack
- The Guardian - Film News
Creatives have always punctured power by exposing its funny side, welcoming those who might shy away from controversy
• Jonathan Wakeham's top 10 satirical comedies
Fifty years ago, Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed the film Dr Strangelove. It's now a comedy classic, but it was adapted from a book called Red Alert by an Raf officer named Peter George – an entirely serious indictment of the supposedly failsafe systems designed to prevent nuclear war.
Kubrick was fascinated by nuclear conflict. But the more he read about the situation, the more he became convinced that a realistic treatment simply couldn't dramatise the absurdity of the situation: that each side possessed enough weaponry to destroy the world several times over; that winning a nuclear war was like winning a suicide race.
What emerged was not the serious drama that Peter George had intended, but a dark and brilliant comedy that still informs the way we look at global conflict.
• Jonathan Wakeham's top 10 satirical comedies
Fifty years ago, Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed the film Dr Strangelove. It's now a comedy classic, but it was adapted from a book called Red Alert by an Raf officer named Peter George – an entirely serious indictment of the supposedly failsafe systems designed to prevent nuclear war.
Kubrick was fascinated by nuclear conflict. But the more he read about the situation, the more he became convinced that a realistic treatment simply couldn't dramatise the absurdity of the situation: that each side possessed enough weaponry to destroy the world several times over; that winning a nuclear war was like winning a suicide race.
What emerged was not the serious drama that Peter George had intended, but a dark and brilliant comedy that still informs the way we look at global conflict.
- 1/17/2014
- The Guardian - Film News
Theatrical hell-raisers and the art world's enfants terribles take centre stage in our roundup of the biggest risk-takers of 2014
Theatre
Oh! What a Lovely War
Theatre-maker Joan Littlewood was a visionary, an iconoclast and a subversive. Her 1963 "documentary collage" about the bitter ironies of the first world war was way ahead of its time, using popular period song and hard-hitting testimony. Lyn Gardner Theatre Royal Stratford East, London E15 (020-8534 0310), 1 February to 15 May.
Macbeth
Shakespeare's dark tale as you've never seen it before, taking place in a secret location from dawn to dusk. Party with Duncan, bed down in Macbeth's castle on the 27th floor of a tower block, glimpse the witches in an underground car park, and join the feast at which Banquo will be an uninvited guest. The spectres will be bloody – but the food will be vegetarian. LG Secret location, London, 4 April to 31 May.
Grit
This...
Theatre
Oh! What a Lovely War
Theatre-maker Joan Littlewood was a visionary, an iconoclast and a subversive. Her 1963 "documentary collage" about the bitter ironies of the first world war was way ahead of its time, using popular period song and hard-hitting testimony. Lyn Gardner Theatre Royal Stratford East, London E15 (020-8534 0310), 1 February to 15 May.
Macbeth
Shakespeare's dark tale as you've never seen it before, taking place in a secret location from dawn to dusk. Party with Duncan, bed down in Macbeth's castle on the 27th floor of a tower block, glimpse the witches in an underground car park, and join the feast at which Banquo will be an uninvited guest. The spectres will be bloody – but the food will be vegetarian. LG Secret location, London, 4 April to 31 May.
Grit
This...
- 1/1/2014
- by Lyn Gardner, Andrew Dickson, Jonathan Jones, Adrian Searle, Imogen Tilden, Andrew Clements, Tom Service, Mark Lawson, Tim Jonze, Brian Logan, Oliver Wainwright, Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Henry Barnes, Judith Mackrell
- The Guardian - Film News
Powerful stage and screen actor often cast as an aristocrat, king or moustachioed villain
When the whisky flowed, according to the writer John Heilpern, the actor Nigel Davenport looked "as if he might knock you through the wall for sport". However, words such as "imposing" and "heavyweight", both often applied to his performances on stage and screen across more than 40 years, do not do sufficient justice to his lightness of touch and comic energy.
Davenport, who has died aged 85, was a founder member of the English Stage Company (Esc) at the Royal Court – in the first season, he was in every production except Look Back in Anger – and a distinguished president of Equity, the actors' union; he played leads in Restoration comedy and absurdist drama as well as King Lear.
In a recent rerun of the BBC's Keeping Up Appearances, he loomed as a lubricious old navy commodore coming on...
When the whisky flowed, according to the writer John Heilpern, the actor Nigel Davenport looked "as if he might knock you through the wall for sport". However, words such as "imposing" and "heavyweight", both often applied to his performances on stage and screen across more than 40 years, do not do sufficient justice to his lightness of touch and comic energy.
Davenport, who has died aged 85, was a founder member of the English Stage Company (Esc) at the Royal Court – in the first season, he was in every production except Look Back in Anger – and a distinguished president of Equity, the actors' union; he played leads in Restoration comedy and absurdist drama as well as King Lear.
In a recent rerun of the BBC's Keeping Up Appearances, he loomed as a lubricious old navy commodore coming on...
- 10/30/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
My mother Pat Ashton, who has died aged 82, was an actor for over four decades. Probably her most important TV role was that of Annie, wife of a burglar (Bob Hoskins) who comes out of prison to find that his old friend (John Thaw) has moved in, in Thick As Thieves (1974). When Yorkshire TV declined a second series, the writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais took the idea to the BBC, where it was developed into the much-loved series Porridge.
Pat was born and raised in Wood Green, north London. During her early years, the piano was the focus of entertainment at home, with her brother Richard playing all the popular songs of the day. Her grandmother had been a trapeze artist, performing in front of the tsar in Russia, and Pat quickly became fascinated with music hall, learned to tap-dance from an early age and went on to...
Pat was born and raised in Wood Green, north London. During her early years, the piano was the focus of entertainment at home, with her brother Richard playing all the popular songs of the day. Her grandmother had been a trapeze artist, performing in front of the tsar in Russia, and Pat quickly became fascinated with music hall, learned to tap-dance from an early age and went on to...
- 6/23/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Introducing our look at the year that defined the modern era, the veteran writer recalls the extraordinary collision of politics, culture and social upheaval that he witnessed as a student
Was it a prefigurative year? I think so. Not that one thought of it as such at the time or even a few years later, when it was totally forgotten in the turbulence that engulfed the world. I am trying to recall that year, to find deep down some memories, even a few impressions on the basis of which I could reconstruct a misted-up past without too many distortions.
When I arrived to study at Oxford in October 1963, the bohemian style was black plastic or leather jackets for women and black leather or navy donkey jackets for men. I stuck to cavalry twills and a duffle coat, at least for a few months. The Cuban missile crisis had temporarily boosted...
Was it a prefigurative year? I think so. Not that one thought of it as such at the time or even a few years later, when it was totally forgotten in the turbulence that engulfed the world. I am trying to recall that year, to find deep down some memories, even a few impressions on the basis of which I could reconstruct a misted-up past without too many distortions.
When I arrived to study at Oxford in October 1963, the bohemian style was black plastic or leather jackets for women and black leather or navy donkey jackets for men. I stuck to cavalry twills and a duffle coat, at least for a few months. The Cuban missile crisis had temporarily boosted...
- 5/7/2013
- by Tariq Ali
- The Guardian - Film News
Irish stage and screen character actor who appeared in Barbarella, The Verdict and the BBC's 1969 sitcom Me Mammy
For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O'Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.
His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland.
He had settled in New York in 1976 with his second wife, Kitty Sullivan, in order to be equidistant from his own main bases of operation, Hollywood and London. The...
For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O'Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.
His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland.
He had settled in New York in 1976 with his second wife, Kitty Sullivan, in order to be equidistant from his own main bases of operation, Hollywood and London. The...
- 4/3/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
Triple Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis has cited the vanity-free actor Phil Davis as a key inspiration, alongside Brando and Streep. Is it time the star of Quadrophenia and Whitechapel was recognised as a British acting great?
Phil Davis calls himself "the nose-and-teeth man". He says he sometimes looks in the mirror and thinks: "Look at that tired old boat race." And it's true that, with his pink skin, squinting eyes and shock of vanilla hair, there is something of the naked mole rat about him.
But this week the largely unsung hero of British screen acting was cited by Daniel Day-Lewis as one of the biggest influences on his career. In an article for Port magazine, Day-Lewis ranked Davis alongside Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando: the actor's 1977 turn in Gotcha, he wrote, had made a "deep impression". Day-Lewis has won three Oscars (Lincoln, There Will Be Blood,...
Phil Davis calls himself "the nose-and-teeth man". He says he sometimes looks in the mirror and thinks: "Look at that tired old boat race." And it's true that, with his pink skin, squinting eyes and shock of vanilla hair, there is something of the naked mole rat about him.
But this week the largely unsung hero of British screen acting was cited by Daniel Day-Lewis as one of the biggest influences on his career. In an article for Port magazine, Day-Lewis ranked Davis alongside Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando: the actor's 1977 turn in Gotcha, he wrote, had made a "deep impression". Day-Lewis has won three Oscars (Lincoln, There Will Be Blood,...
- 3/13/2013
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
A dignified comic actor in farce and on TV, and a dedicated disability campaigner alongside her husband, Brian Rix
The acting career of Elspet Gray, who has died aged 83, was obscured but not extinguished by being so closely bound up with her marriage to the farceur Brian Rix. In 1951, Gray gave birth to a daughter, Shelley, who had Down's syndrome. In later life she was active alongside her actor-manager husband after he left the stage in 1977 to work for people with learning disabilities – initially through presenting a BBC television series, and then as secretary general of Mencap. However, she made periodic returns to the stage and maintained a screen presence: in 1979, for instance, she was a paediatrician guest in Fawlty Towers, and in 1994 the first bride's mother in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
As well as bringing up her subsequent three children, she visited Shelley every week in the residential...
The acting career of Elspet Gray, who has died aged 83, was obscured but not extinguished by being so closely bound up with her marriage to the farceur Brian Rix. In 1951, Gray gave birth to a daughter, Shelley, who had Down's syndrome. In later life she was active alongside her actor-manager husband after he left the stage in 1977 to work for people with learning disabilities – initially through presenting a BBC television series, and then as secretary general of Mencap. However, she made periodic returns to the stage and maintained a screen presence: in 1979, for instance, she was a paediatrician guest in Fawlty Towers, and in 1994 the first bride's mother in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
As well as bringing up her subsequent three children, she visited Shelley every week in the residential...
- 2/20/2013
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
BBC radio producer who created the serial Journey into Space
The BBC radio producer and writer Charles Chilton, who has died aged 95, created a classic radio serial, Journey into Space, various series exploring the America of the past, and the one-off programme that eventually took to stage and screen as Oh! What a Lovely War. At the start of his career, radio could still attract audiences greater than those for television, and as well as producing popular comedy series such as The Goon Show and Take It from Here, Chilton devised some of its most distinctive material.
The first series of Journey into Space, broadcast in 1953, was described as "groundbreaking". "Well, it has to be," Chilton laughed in response. It took Captain Jet Morgan, played by the future MP Andrew Faulds, and his crew to the moon. They went on to Mars in the remaining two parts of the trilogy,...
The BBC radio producer and writer Charles Chilton, who has died aged 95, created a classic radio serial, Journey into Space, various series exploring the America of the past, and the one-off programme that eventually took to stage and screen as Oh! What a Lovely War. At the start of his career, radio could still attract audiences greater than those for television, and as well as producing popular comedy series such as The Goon Show and Take It from Here, Chilton devised some of its most distinctive material.
The first series of Journey into Space, broadcast in 1953, was described as "groundbreaking". "Well, it has to be," Chilton laughed in response. It took Captain Jet Morgan, played by the future MP Andrew Faulds, and his crew to the moon. They went on to Mars in the remaining two parts of the trilogy,...
- 1/14/2013
- by David Rayvern Allen
- The Guardian - Film News
I write as chair of the board of trustees of the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. It is an amateur theatre with a small professional staff, which presents 12 plays each year. In programming our current season, January to December 2012, we set out to ensure women were well-represented in all aspects. Accordingly, we chose six plays by female authors, used five female directors out of the 12 and more than 50% of the roles were for women. Next year, we shall again be offering more roles for women than for men, beginning with Playhouse Creatures by April de Angelis, which is being directed by a woman and will have an all-female crew. Our policy is, in part, driven by the fact that we have more women than men in our acting company, a factor that Stella Duffy highlights in her article (Theatre of the absurd, 13 December). It makes sense to us to use the talent...
- 12/15/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
The Guardian's season of British cult classics continues with a double helping of youth pop culture set in London in the 60s and 70s
Reading on mobile? Click here to view
This week is pop culture week in our British cult classics series – well, sort of. Our double bill is a pair of films that turn fresh eyes on two different London youth tribes of the 60s and 70s: the black street soul of Notting Hill is celebrated in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, while the white working class suedehead world of Stratford is the focus of Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog. The former was a flagship production of the BFI Production Board, costing around £1.7m in 1990; Bronco was a rough-and-ready £18,000 shoot in 1970, taking off from Joan Littlewood's youth theatre workshops. But both show equal affection for their subjects, and from this distance are each a fantastically revealing...
Reading on mobile? Click here to view
This week is pop culture week in our British cult classics series – well, sort of. Our double bill is a pair of films that turn fresh eyes on two different London youth tribes of the 60s and 70s: the black street soul of Notting Hill is celebrated in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, while the white working class suedehead world of Stratford is the focus of Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog. The former was a flagship production of the BFI Production Board, costing around £1.7m in 1990; Bronco was a rough-and-ready £18,000 shoot in 1970, taking off from Joan Littlewood's youth theatre workshops. But both show equal affection for their subjects, and from this distance are each a fantastically revealing...
- 11/23/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
The Sheffield revival of A Taste of Honey should help us better remember an unfairly neglected playwright – but here's plenty of footage to be going on with
As a major of revival of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey opens in Sheffield, it's time to remember the debt owed to the playwright, who died last year, by many writers – even the songwriter Morrissey.
Reading this on mobile? Watch the video here
A major dictionary of theatre on my bookcase, dating from the mid-1990s, doesn't even mention the Salford-born Delaney, who can seen here in Ken Russell's 1960 Monitor film on the writer and her town.
The lack of recognition from the theatre world is probably partly because, after 1960, she largely turned her attention to screenplays, eventually writing the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, in which Miranda Richardson played Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England.
As a major of revival of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey opens in Sheffield, it's time to remember the debt owed to the playwright, who died last year, by many writers – even the songwriter Morrissey.
Reading this on mobile? Watch the video here
A major dictionary of theatre on my bookcase, dating from the mid-1990s, doesn't even mention the Salford-born Delaney, who can seen here in Ken Russell's 1960 Monitor film on the writer and her town.
The lack of recognition from the theatre world is probably partly because, after 1960, she largely turned her attention to screenplays, eventually writing the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, in which Miranda Richardson played Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England.
- 10/24/2012
- by Lyn Gardner
- The Guardian - Film News
You thought it was innocent family entertainment? Wrong. Danny Boyle's political production would have made Joan Littlewood and the leftwing Theatre Workshop proud
During the era of agitprop theatre in the 1960s and 70s, when politically committed companies toured the UK, there was usually a rule that the show would not go on if there was a risk of having more people on stage than in the audience. And even with the hallucinogenic substances that were part of the scene at the time, no one would have imagined that a passionately leftwing theatre show would one day play to an audience of one billion and have a budget of £27m to spend.
But, last Friday night and Saturday morning, that is exactly what happened. Among the spectacular achievements of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony was that it marked the apotheosis of a dramatic tradition that had previously been marginalised in this country.
During the era of agitprop theatre in the 1960s and 70s, when politically committed companies toured the UK, there was usually a rule that the show would not go on if there was a risk of having more people on stage than in the audience. And even with the hallucinogenic substances that were part of the scene at the time, no one would have imagined that a passionately leftwing theatre show would one day play to an audience of one billion and have a budget of £27m to spend.
But, last Friday night and Saturday morning, that is exactly what happened. Among the spectacular achievements of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony was that it marked the apotheosis of a dramatic tradition that had previously been marginalised in this country.
- 7/31/2012
- by Mark Lawson
- The Guardian - Film News
I couldn't have known, as my late husband and I brushed past the figure in the front row of a Hair rehearsal in 1968 at the Cambridge theatre, that the man-imp who gently prodded me would become one of my closest pals. Victor Spinetti soon invited us to his soirees, where his partner, Graham, prepared meatloaf for literary and showbiz friends.
Vic cherished friends and family. When Joan Littlewood and I visited him on tour, he gazed adoringly at her with the same look he would turn on his ebullient mum, Lil. However long between meetings or emails (after I introduced him to the internet), he would shed the performer's facade to reveal the real Vic. Or "The Old Vic", as he called himself, facing the passing of time with grace and laughter.
Only those close to him saw the pain, vitriol and vulnerability which informed his comedy. He could be bitter,...
Vic cherished friends and family. When Joan Littlewood and I visited him on tour, he gazed adoringly at her with the same look he would turn on his ebullient mum, Lil. However long between meetings or emails (after I introduced him to the internet), he would shed the performer's facade to reveal the real Vic. Or "The Old Vic", as he called himself, facing the passing of time with grace and laughter.
Only those close to him saw the pain, vitriol and vulnerability which informed his comedy. He could be bitter,...
- 6/22/2012
- by Beth Porter
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor who made his name at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and appeared in the Beatles films, making firm friends with the Fab Four
Victor Spinetti, who has died of cancer aged 82, was an outrageously talented Welsh actor and raconteur who made his name with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and found fame and fortune as a friend and colleague of the Beatles, appearing in three of their five films, and with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967).
It was while he was giving his brilliantly articulated and hilarious "turn" as the gobbledegook-shouting drill sergeant in Oh, What a Lovely War! in the West End in 1963 – he won a Tony for the performance when the show went to Broadway – that the Beatles visited him backstage and invited him to appear in A Hard Day's Night (1964).
George Harrison later said that his mother would...
Victor Spinetti, who has died of cancer aged 82, was an outrageously talented Welsh actor and raconteur who made his name with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and found fame and fortune as a friend and colleague of the Beatles, appearing in three of their five films, and with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967).
It was while he was giving his brilliantly articulated and hilarious "turn" as the gobbledegook-shouting drill sergeant in Oh, What a Lovely War! in the West End in 1963 – he won a Tony for the performance when the show went to Broadway – that the Beatles visited him backstage and invited him to appear in A Hard Day's Night (1964).
George Harrison later said that his mother would...
- 6/20/2012
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
Actors and comedians including Rob Brydon, Barbara Windsor and Britt Ekland pay their respects to veteran poet and raconteur
Actors and comedians have paid tribute to one of the best loved of their profession, the actor, poet, and peerless raconteur Victor Spinetti, who has died of cancer in a hospice in Monmouth aged 82.
Spinetti appeared in the first Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night, and in all of their subsequent films because they liked him so much. Sir Paul McCartney once described him as "the man who makes clouds disappear", and he insisted George Harrison told him: "You've got to be in all our films … if you're not in them me Mum won't come and see them – because she fancies you."
Rob Brydon, the actor and television presenter, and fellow Welshman, said Spinetti's death was terribly sad news.
"One of the funniest raconteurs there's ever been, a lovely man who...
Actors and comedians have paid tribute to one of the best loved of their profession, the actor, poet, and peerless raconteur Victor Spinetti, who has died of cancer in a hospice in Monmouth aged 82.
Spinetti appeared in the first Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night, and in all of their subsequent films because they liked him so much. Sir Paul McCartney once described him as "the man who makes clouds disappear", and he insisted George Harrison told him: "You've got to be in all our films … if you're not in them me Mum won't come and see them – because she fancies you."
Rob Brydon, the actor and television presenter, and fellow Welshman, said Spinetti's death was terribly sad news.
"One of the funniest raconteurs there's ever been, a lovely man who...
- 6/19/2012
- by Maev Kennedy
- The Guardian - Film News
Victor Spinetti has died at the age of 82. The actor, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, was known for his performances in The Beatles' movies A Hard Day's Night, Help! and Magical Mystery Tour. The band had asked him to appear in their first film after his performance in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop Oh, What a Lovely War!, which later transferred to the West End and Broadway, where he won a Tony Award. Spinetti later (more)...
- 6/19/2012
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
Phil Davis, the British actor and director, says gritty drama offers escapism from the recession
A corpse is found in a dark London alley: across the body a jester's hat is draped, or maybe there is a charcoal inscription of a tarot symbol, or perhaps the spray-painted tag of an unknown graffiti artist. Something mysterious anyway. For this is British crime drama – the new, macabre style. No more slamming car doors and seedy nightclubs. Popular thriller series such as Whitechapel on ITV or Sherlock on the BBC rely instead on chilling their audiences to the bone. And somewhere, amid the gloom, the increasingly well-known face of Phil Davis often lurks.
Davis, who is a regular in Whitechapel and who played the warped taxi driver in the first series of Sherlock, believes the demand for smart, modern horror is a symptom of the times: "There are two things everybody wants when...
A corpse is found in a dark London alley: across the body a jester's hat is draped, or maybe there is a charcoal inscription of a tarot symbol, or perhaps the spray-painted tag of an unknown graffiti artist. Something mysterious anyway. For this is British crime drama – the new, macabre style. No more slamming car doors and seedy nightclubs. Popular thriller series such as Whitechapel on ITV or Sherlock on the BBC rely instead on chilling their audiences to the bone. And somewhere, amid the gloom, the increasingly well-known face of Phil Davis often lurks.
Davis, who is a regular in Whitechapel and who played the warped taxi driver in the first series of Sherlock, believes the demand for smart, modern horror is a symptom of the times: "There are two things everybody wants when...
- 4/28/2012
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
Feisty playwright best known for her ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
- 11/22/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
It may have had a little too much of the grimness removed, but this sweet-natured film about a 1968 strike for equal pay is a properly feelgood film, says Peter Bradshaw
There could hardly be anything more exotic and unfamiliar in mainstream commercial cinema than the story of a successful strike. But this is what screenwriter Billy Ivory and director Nigel Cole give us with their broad, primary-coloured, good-humoured comedy – almost, but not exactly, a shopfloor version of Calendar Girls (2003), also directed by Cole, the film about the Wi women who posed nude to raise money for charity. Made in Dagenham is based on the Ford women car workers' strike of 1968, in which female staff sewing seat covers for Cortinas and Zephyrs went on strike for the same wage as the men. This commanded headlines, galvanised the political debate, and indirectly led to the Equal Pay Act of 1970.
It stars Sally Hawkins as Rita,...
There could hardly be anything more exotic and unfamiliar in mainstream commercial cinema than the story of a successful strike. But this is what screenwriter Billy Ivory and director Nigel Cole give us with their broad, primary-coloured, good-humoured comedy – almost, but not exactly, a shopfloor version of Calendar Girls (2003), also directed by Cole, the film about the Wi women who posed nude to raise money for charity. Made in Dagenham is based on the Ford women car workers' strike of 1968, in which female staff sewing seat covers for Cortinas and Zephyrs went on strike for the same wage as the men. This commanded headlines, galvanised the political debate, and indirectly led to the Equal Pay Act of 1970.
It stars Sally Hawkins as Rita,...
- 9/30/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The 25-year-old writer-director Barney Platts-Mills made his promising debut with Bronco Bullfrog in 1969 at a time when British cinema, having abandoned realism for the seductive tinsel of Swinging London, was thrashing around in the doldrums following the withdrawal of American finance. Only Ken Loach with Kes and Platts-Mills with Bronco Bullfrog seemed to be looking at Harold Wilson's Britain and the dead-end lives of its teenagers.
Platts-Mills's low-budget, independent monochrome movie arose out of a project for East End kids at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and was semi-improvised by non-professional performers. At the centre is the 17-year-old apprentice welder Del, who disrupts the monotony of life with petty theft and fighting and hero-worships the eponymous borstal fugitive (Sam Shepherd). Just as he plans a railyard robbery with Bronco, he enters into a touching relationship with the 15-year-old Irene, whose father is serving time for armed robbery. Her mother...
Platts-Mills's low-budget, independent monochrome movie arose out of a project for East End kids at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and was semi-improvised by non-professional performers. At the centre is the 17-year-old apprentice welder Del, who disrupts the monotony of life with petty theft and fighting and hero-worships the eponymous borstal fugitive (Sam Shepherd). Just as he plans a railyard robbery with Bronco, he enters into a touching relationship with the 15-year-old Irene, whose father is serving time for armed robbery. Her mother...
- 6/12/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
A breathtaking time capsule of early 70s London. By Peter Bradshaw
In 1970, Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog brought the improvisational energy of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal to the cinema screen in his low-budget east London love story, shot in black-and-white and featuring non-professional teens. Inevitably, there is something a little uncertain about it sometimes, but the principals, Del Walker and Anne Gooding, are winningly real, there is freshness and life and as a historical record it's pure gold. Walker looks a bit like Pete Townshend and Anne Gooding shows heartbreakingly what her teenage character Irene is going to be like at 40 or 50. The movie is a breathtaking time capsule of early 70s London, with The Golden Egg in Leicester Square, glass milk bottles with foil caps and saying "turn it over" instead of switch channels, because telly, like a coin, had but two sides.
Rating: 4/5
RomanceDramaPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.
In 1970, Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog brought the improvisational energy of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal to the cinema screen in his low-budget east London love story, shot in black-and-white and featuring non-professional teens. Inevitably, there is something a little uncertain about it sometimes, but the principals, Del Walker and Anne Gooding, are winningly real, there is freshness and life and as a historical record it's pure gold. Walker looks a bit like Pete Townshend and Anne Gooding shows heartbreakingly what her teenage character Irene is going to be like at 40 or 50. The movie is a breathtaking time capsule of early 70s London, with The Golden Egg in Leicester Square, glass milk bottles with foil caps and saying "turn it over" instead of switch channels, because telly, like a coin, had but two sides.
Rating: 4/5
RomanceDramaPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.
- 6/10/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Thank you for Xan Brooks's kind mention of Bronco Bullfrog (The film the UK forgot, Film&Music, 4 June). But I obviously have to make an apology. It was heartening to read Sam Shepherd's story of the Princess Royal recognising her own mum in Mrs Shepherd's portrayal of working-class prejudice in the film, reminding one of a slightly better, more open society that we grew up in. I was shocked, however, to read the word I am reported to have used of Peter Hall. Perhaps I have little opinion of anyone working in commercial cinema, but Peter would be among the least of my bete noire, and I have to believe that I must have been quoting Joan Littlewood in using such an unattractive word about him.
Joan notoriously thought we were all aptly described with anatomical misnomers. It is galling though, both for her ghost and for myself, to be caught out like this.
Joan notoriously thought we were all aptly described with anatomical misnomers. It is galling though, both for her ghost and for myself, to be caught out like this.
- 6/7/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Sir Patrick Stewart heads the jury at Edinburgh this year, with some strong British films in contention. Meanwhile, Madonna is to make a second foray into direction and lost gem Bronco Bullfrog is restored to its full youthful East End glory. By Jason Solomons
Tartan up the juries
Sir Patrick Stewart - we do not yet know if he will insist on using the full, grand title - is to head the Jury at the 64th Edinburgh international film festival. The actor, who can legitimately be called "Mr President" for the duration of the event, will sit in judgment over the prestigious Michael Powell award, given to the best British film at the festival. Competitors include: Paul Andrew Williams's Cherry Tree Lane (his searing debut London to Brighton premiered at the festival in 2006); Nick Moran's The Kid; Huge, the directing debut of comic actor Ben Miller; and Soulboy,...
Tartan up the juries
Sir Patrick Stewart - we do not yet know if he will insist on using the full, grand title - is to head the Jury at the 64th Edinburgh international film festival. The actor, who can legitimately be called "Mr President" for the duration of the event, will sit in judgment over the prestigious Michael Powell award, given to the best British film at the festival. Competitors include: Paul Andrew Williams's Cherry Tree Lane (his searing debut London to Brighton premiered at the festival in 2006); Nick Moran's The Kid; Huge, the directing debut of comic actor Ben Miller; and Soulboy,...
- 6/5/2010
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
A rude, bracing slice of East End life that dropped off screens for decades, Bronco Bullfrog is finally back. Xan Brooks talks to the survivors of a British classic
One night in November 1970, Princess Anne tripped along to Oxford Circus for the London premiere of Three Sisters, a film starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier, who had recently been made a life peer in the birthday honours list. A pleasant evening lay in store – except that there, on the red carpet, the princess found herself face-to-face with the hoi polloi, the great unwashed. Some 200 members of the Beaumont youth club out in Leyton, east London, had shown up to jeer her. Some were reported to have chucked tomatoes at her head. These protesters did not think the princess should be on her way to see some stuffy Chekhov drama by a peer of the realm. They wanted her to...
One night in November 1970, Princess Anne tripped along to Oxford Circus for the London premiere of Three Sisters, a film starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier, who had recently been made a life peer in the birthday honours list. A pleasant evening lay in store – except that there, on the red carpet, the princess found herself face-to-face with the hoi polloi, the great unwashed. Some 200 members of the Beaumont youth club out in Leyton, east London, had shown up to jeer her. Some were reported to have chucked tomatoes at her head. These protesters did not think the princess should be on her way to see some stuffy Chekhov drama by a peer of the realm. They wanted her to...
- 6/3/2010
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
Can Martin Scorsese pull off a horror movie? Is Glasgow the new Venice? And what's Ricky Gervais up to in Reading? Our critics pick next year's hottest tickets
Film
Cemetery Junction
Having conquered Hollywood, Ricky Gervais is coming home. With his long-time collaborator Stephen Merchant, he has set out to create a British film in the tradition of Billy Liar and the Likely Lads – and of course his own masterpiece The Office – about three blokes working for the Prudential insurance company in Gervais's hometown of Reading. Released on 7 April.
A Single Man
The smart money says Colin Firth will be bringing home a certain gold, bald-headed statuette for his performance as a bereaved gay man in Los Angeles. Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, the movie – fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut – follows one day in the life of Firth's literature academic as he confronts his own mortality. Released on 12 February.
Film
Cemetery Junction
Having conquered Hollywood, Ricky Gervais is coming home. With his long-time collaborator Stephen Merchant, he has set out to create a British film in the tradition of Billy Liar and the Likely Lads – and of course his own masterpiece The Office – about three blokes working for the Prudential insurance company in Gervais's hometown of Reading. Released on 7 April.
A Single Man
The smart money says Colin Firth will be bringing home a certain gold, bald-headed statuette for his performance as a bereaved gay man in Los Angeles. Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, the movie – fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut – follows one day in the life of Firth's literature academic as he confronts his own mortality. Released on 12 February.
- 12/31/2009
- The Guardian - Film News
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