Latest news with #EroticVagrancy
The Irish Sun
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Sexy BBC drama star in the frame to play Elizabeth Taylor in blockbuster TV show about movie icon
RISING Brit star Marisa Abela is in the frame to play Elizabeth Taylor in a blockbuster TV drama charting the movie legend's sensational life. The actress won a Bafta for playing sexy financier Yasmin Kara-Hanani in three series of the BBC's bonking-and-banking drama Industry. 4 Marisa Abela is in the frame to play Elizabeth Taylor in a blockbuster TV drama charting the movie legend's sensational life Credit: Getty 4 Screen siren Liz Taylor is rumoured to have once had a threesome with President John F Kennedy and actor Robert Stack Credit: Getty 4 Marisa won a Bafta for playing sexy financier Yasmin Kara-Hanani in BBC drama Industry Credit: Getty An insider said: 'Bosses of the adaptation want someone who can capture the essence of the single-minded woman that married seven times and was said to have had a voracious sexual appetite. 'It's very early days for the project but the producers want to assemble formidable British talent with the aim of making this a blockbuster series.' Former EastEnders boss Dominic Treadwell-Collins is developing the drama — called Read More on TV The scripts are being written by Times columnist Caitlin Moran, a superfan who once said of her idol: 'She ate up life like a sexy glutton.' It is based on the book Erotic Vagrancy, written by Roger Lewis, about Liz's passionate love affair with husband The London-born star of Cleopatra and Giant, who died in 2011 aged 79, was said to have had sexual needs as famous as her husband's. Legend has it that she once had a threesome with President John F Kennedy and actor Robert Stack. Most read in News TV Producers Happy Prince made the racy adaptation of The company is part of ITV Studios, which means the drama could end up airing on ITV. Seven divorces, health drama & a public affair - Elizabeth Taylor's controversial life revealed as doc shares her side But it may end up in a bidding war among streamers with a hunger for quality British drama. 4 Marisa as Amy Winehouse opposite Jack O'Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil in Back to Black Credit: PA
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mr Burton review – the teacher who inspired and encouraged screen legend Richard Burton
The career of Richard Burton seemed mythic at the time, and more so in retrospect. In Pedro Almodóvar's latest movie The Room Next Door, Julianne Moore's character is even shown reading Erotic Vagrancy, Roger Lewis's account of Burton's then-adulterous relationship with Elizabeth Taylor in the early 60s, the title taken from Pope John XXIII's extraordinary denunciation: 'You will finish in an erotic vagrancy, without end or without a safe port.' In fact, the nearest thing Burton ever had to a safe port was his inspirational English teacher Philip Burton in Port Talbot, south Wales, whose own frustrated dreams of the theatre were poured into the bright young miner's son Richard Jenkins, coaching him in acting and even making him his legal ward and getting him to change his surname to Burton to facilitate the teacher's sponsorship of his Oxford scholarship. It's the subject of this heartfelt, vigorously acted, enjoyable, if slightly naive movie from screenwriters Tom Bullough and Josh Hyams, and director Marc Evans. Toby Jones stars as the spaniel-eyed Mr Burton and Harry Lawtey is Richard, a lanky, needy kid morphing into that insufferably haughty and sonorous prince of the English stage. It tells a uniquely painful and dysfunctional story, and does its best to show how Burton's pride always coexisted with shame and self-hate, and culminated with him playing Hal in Henry IV Part 2 at Stratford with Mr Burton in the audience, the pair effectively enacting their own version of the Hal/Falstaff betrayal scene. The film also takes up the disputed claim that Richard's boozy and negligent dad only relinquished legal guardianship to Mr Burton in return for the teacher's cash payment of £50, the equivalent of £1,300 today. That may or may not be true, but it is certainly consistent with something deeply uncomfortable in the whole affair – this is no simple feelgood story. Even Billy Elliot's dad didn't actually give up his parental rights. Lawtey makes for a livewire Richard, living with his sister Cis (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) and her glowering husband Elfed (Aneurin Barnard) because there's no room with his drunk dad Dic Jenkins (Steffan Rhodri) down the road. When he does well in Mr Burton's English class and at his drama club, he moves in to Mr Burton's house, where the film imagines a landlady called Ma Smith (Lesley Manville), perhaps to provide a chaperoning presence in the story. The drama here is absolutely clear that there was nothing predatory in the older man's intentions, despite an ugly homophobic jibe from Dic Jenkins once he'd got that fabled £50 in his hand. But certainly Richard himself is resentful and confused and there is an excruciatingly embarrassing encounter between the two in Mr Burton's bedroom with both in their pyjamas. Does the film bowdlerise the teacher's complicated, hidden emotional life? Perhaps, yes. There is no evidence of abuse, but no one is under any illusions about what others were insinuating. Jones certainly shows Mr Burton's sad and dignified loneliness. Mr Burton is in UK and Irish cinemas from 4 April.
Telegraph
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
David and Victoria Beckham ‘inspired' BBC's new Agatha Christie series
Victoria and David Beckham provided the inspiration for the BBC's latest Agatha Christie adaptation, its makers have said. Towards Zero features a famous sportsman and his wife, whose marriage has come under the microscope during a sensational divorce case in which he confesses to an affair. The makers of the BBC One series said they had drawn parallels between the fictional couple and the Beckhams. 'We were in development at the time the David Beckham documentary came out, and we did a lot of talking about that,' said Rebecca Durbin, the drama's producer, citing 'the excitement, the celebrity, the craziness' that surrounds the Beckhams. The drama's director, Sam Yates, joked that using the Beckhams as inspiration was 'incredibly lowbrow'. The Beckhams have denied rumours over the years of a pending divorce and remain happily married. In the Netflix documentary, they make oblique reference to claims that David had an affair with his personal assistant Rebecca Loos while he was playing for Real Madrid. Towards Zero is based on Christie's 1944 murder mystery. It stars Oliver Jackson-Cohen as tennis star Nevile Strange, Mimi Keene as his new wife, Kay, and Ella Lily Hyland as his ex-wife, Audrey. The trio are drawn into uneasy proximity during a stay at the home of Nevile's aunt, Lady Tressilian, who is played by Angelica Huston. Durbin said that the adaptation would put the sex into Christie. 'We talked a lot about sexy Christie,' she said at the drama's launch. 'The situations are so modern. 'Lucy Worsley [in her biography of Christie] talks a little bit about Agatha and her modern attitudes towards sex and female desire, and that was something we took into account.' The cast was also asked to read Erotic Vagrancy, Roger Lewis's book about the passionate affair between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, as additional preparation. James Prichard, the author's great-grandson and chief executive of her estate, said: 'These are modern shows. They're grown-up shows. I think it's an incredibly powerful moment. And on that basis, I am comfortable with it. It's fairly in-your-face but… it's a crucial part of the show.' Mr Prichard also told the Daily Mail that he was relaxed about characters using the f-word, which did not happen in Christie's books. 'I think probably the modern world has moved beyond really minding massively,' he said. He said of his great-grandmother: 'She certainly wouldn't have used the f-word. I can be pretty sure of that. But it's a generational thing, isn't it? We're doing adaptations in 2025, not in 1925.' Towards Zero is one of Christie's lesser-known works but she considered it to be one of her best. In a letter to a Japanese fan, she included it in a list of the 10 best mysteries she had written. It has been adapted for television by Rachel Bennette. The murder happens late in the book and the three-part drama follows suit, with no murder in the first episode. Yates said: 'It's a who's-going-to-do-it that becomes a whodunit.' Huston said: 'When I was first offered the part of Lady Tressilian, I was delighted at the prospect that my British television debut would be in an Agatha Christie production. She is, after all, the Queen of Crime.' Her English accent is impeccable, and Yates revealed that the Oscar-winning actress can also do an excellent Northern accent honed through watching Coronation Street, one of her favourite shows.
