Latest news with #Hytner
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Comedian Steve Hytner to perform in Tea
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — He's appeared on numerous television shows, including King of Queens, Friends, and Two and a Half Men. But Steve Hytner is probably best known for his role as Kenny Bania on Seinfeld. Hytner will be performing standup comedy later this week at the Titan Tavern in Tea. Card skimmer technology becoming 'very sophisticated' KELOLAND's Don Jorgensen talked with him earlier Tuesday about what the crowd can expect. 'I can tell them what not to expect, I have no interest in rambling on about politics, I feel like that's been covered, I feel like when people go out they want to go see a comedy show, they want to laugh, they want to have a couple of drinks and they want to have a good time,' Hytner said. Hytner will perform Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Titan Tavern in Tea and 7 each night. For ticket information, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘To my wife for managing my vast collection of neuroses!' – the Olivier awards' best quotes
Director Robert Icke on the unexpected effect of staging the tragedy Oedipus: We've had such a nice time – it turns out incest really brings people together! John Lithgow has an extreme reaction akin to audiences at Romola Garai's The Years as he collects the best actor award: Romola, I think I'm going to faint! Layton Williams acknowledges the, er, unusual nature of his Titanique role: I just won an Olivier for playing an iceberg! Director Eline Arbo explains why Annie Ernaux's The Years is a book for the ages: I would like to thank Annie Ernaux for reminding us all that the story of a normal woman's life can be extraordinary Presenter Celia Imrie admires the shortlist for best supporting actor: There are four nominees and I don't understand how you can choose between these four handsome hunks And the winner of that award is Elliot Levey for Giant, who praises the playwright and director: Thank you to Rosenblatt and Hytner. Which sounds like three people doesn't it? Like a firm of chartered accountants. Rosen, Blatt and Hytner. I'd use them. Thanks to all three of you! Maimuna Memon, who won best supporting actress in a musical, reflects on her stop-start embrace with presenter Corbin Bleu: Trust me to make it awkward with a kiss! Worse for wear or bodyguards? Tom Burke gives two reasons why he and co-presenter Cate Blanchett are in dark shades: Cate and I moonlight as each other's personal security – it makes a public event such as this quite complicated … The other reason is we finished doing The Seagull last night Mark Rosenblatt was among many to recognise the vital backstage role played by partners: To my wondrous wife, Amy, for managing my vast collection of neuroses Rufus Norris lists what he holds dear as he says goodbye to the National Theatre, after receiving a special award for his tenure: Empathy, collaboration, craft, rigour, equality of opportunity and love – in all its complexity
The Independent
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Jonathan Bailey brings a wonderful clarity and charisma to this tale of a misbehaving, queer-coded despot in Richard II
Right now, accusations of ill-advised stunt casting are being flung at the West End, but Nicholas Hytner' s take on Shakespeare 's corrupt king Richard II is innocent of these charges, at least. Although he's fresh from stealing the limelight in Wicked, star Jonathan Bailey has been landing big stage roles since he was in literal primary school, and he brings a wonderful clarity and charisma to this tale of a misbehaving, queer-coded despot. This is a play that's rich with chewy metaphors and Bailey relishes them, delighting in extravagant speeches as much as he does in the circlet of gold that rings his head – which is to say, a little too much. With an infectious spirit of camp naughtiness, he hugs his crown like a teddy bear, aims wry put-downs at dull courtiers, and bosses his court around like they're actors in a play – when Mowbray (Phoenix Di Sebastiani) and Bullingbrook quarrel (Royce Pierreson), he bids them settle their differences with their shirts off, muscles glistening, and steals an intense kiss from the latter. When he warns them 'never to embrace each other's love in banishment', they exchange a knowing look. The homoerotic playfulness of these early scenes soon curdles into something sickening. Richard II is an exploration of the limits of power, examining whether someone who abuses their position should be overthrown, even if that means parting ways with the rule of law. 'You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,' the Duke of York (Michael Simkins) warns his king, as Bailey chomps on boiled sweets like he's watching a particularly boring movie. Soon, things get real. Disgruntled courtiers are plotting in the rubbish-strewn mud of this play's rather jaundiced vision of Gloucestershire (no doubt the tourist board is writing in), ready to drag their leader into the dirt. Shakespeare's non-partisan approach gives Richard and his rival to the throne, Bullingbrook, near-equal moral claims to the throne. Here, Hytner sets them up as opposites: as Bullingbrook, Pierreson has a rugged, rough-handed integrity, a solid contrast to flighty Richard, who responds to the threat by taking refuge in the divine trappings of royalty. In a standout moment, Hytner makes Bailey ascend to the theatre's balcony where he positions himself among (no doubt thrilled) audience members in a golden spotlight – out of reach of his furious detractors. Other choices feel less successful, as when Hytner raids his Big Boy's Box of Theatrical Toys to stage the war scenes, dragging on a massive cannon that does very little, and making the audience blink with a spectacular but oddly timed artillery light show. It's the speeches, not the fireworks, that really dazzle here. Hytner's decades of directing experience shine through this cast's universally strong renditions of Shakespeare's verse, bringing an acidic zing to words that otherwise could feel rich and stodgy. Similarly, his subtle reframing of some scenes makes them feel strikingly modern. Richard II's (implied) lover Aumerle is beautifully rendered by trans actor Vinnie Heaven, who sits round a farmhouse wooden table with their disgruntled home counties parents, looking as sheepish and defiant as a drag performer who's home for Christmas. But who wouldn't fall under the spell of this captivating king? Bailey lights up Hytner's lucid production of a strange but infinitely satisfying play.
The Guardian
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I'm an actor, not a mouthpiece': Jonathan Bailey
The actor Jonathan Bailey sits at a large table in an otherwise empty room: charcoal cable knit sweater, loose pinstripe trousers, hair neatly coiffed. He is chewing gum, sipping coffee, talking through his recent career, and a certain serendipity that has rendered him reflective. At 36, he's fresh from his turn as likely-lad love interest Fiyero in Hollywood's blockbuster adaptation of Wicked; as a child, seeing the stage show was a milestone for him. 'I remember thinking Fiyero was such a good part.' Later this year he will star in Jurassic World Rebirth alongside Mahershala Ali and Scarlett Johansson. 'I saw the original Jurassic Park with my family, aged six, at the cinema,' he says. 'It was the first time we all went together to something like that. It was seminal, but so rare for us.' And this month, Bailey will star in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, directed by Nicholas Hytner. Bailey is its protagonist. It is another example of full-circle career moment. In 2013, he appeared on stage in Hytner's Othello. Same playwright, same director, same city – Bailey can't help but consider all that's changed in the intervening years. 'Back then I was too young,' he says. 'I came into the rehearsal process not mature or confident enough.' Landing the role of Cassio, one of Othello's lieutenants, had been so important to him then. 'I didn't go to drama school,' he says, 'and there was a common belief that if you hadn't, you wouldn't be able to do classical texts, or perform in the big theatres. There are all these stories we are born into that we have to unpick. For me, one of those was how limited I felt.' Bailey remembers the day that changed. 'It was late December,' he says, 'and I was walking along London's South Bank.' He was on his way to the National Theatre to meet Hytner for a callback. 'I'd worked so hard and for so many reasons it felt…' He cuts himself off, then goes on, 'Working at the National was beyond my wildest dreams.' Bailey performed the two scenes he'd prepared. Then, Hytner unexpectedly suggested a third, which Bailey hadn't rehearsed. 'I'm not very good at just reading and going,' he says. 'I can't really come up with… Anyway, I went with instincts. He offered me the job in the room. It was a defining moment in my career.' All sorts of opportunities followed for Bailey: American Psycho at the Almeida; Phoebe Waller-Bridge's TV debut Crashing; King Lear opposite Ian McKellen; BBC satirical sitcom W1A. He was made very famous for playing a leading Lothario in Bridgerton, the Netflix behemoth. 'Now being back with Nick,' he says. 'I have a much fuller and more cherished understanding of him as a human as well as a director. Getting back into a room with him now, with all that's happening, just felt obvious.' Hytner's praise for Bailey is just as high: 'He can speak Shakespeare like it's his first language… The stage is his element.' It's Wednesday lunchtime, early January, in a central London studio space. We're meeting halfway through five weeks of Richard II rehearsals in full swing a few floors below us. He's sitting at a large table. In front of him is a bulky script covered in yellow highlights. 'It's only half,' he says, flicking through, playful panic in his voice. 'Not only that, I've thinned it, and taken out the scenes I'm not in, which feels very Richard II.' It's Bailey's first stage production since 2022. Through Bridgerton, he has been exposed to a global audience. But theatre is where it all began. 'So returning to the stage, now, just felt so right. And I don't think I've changed at all, even if certain things around me have.' It has taken some adjustment, this new level of 'Black Mirror-esque' notoriety that he's experiencing. It's why he likes the intimacy of these rehearsals, after months spent on sprawling film sets. And he's enjoying being based in London for an extended period, close to friends and family. Bailey is charming, handsome and self-effacing as we talk, but doesn't seem entirely at ease. That gum chewing is fervent now; he's fiddling with what's in front of him. He habitually self-edits as he speaks. There's a vagueness that, at times, feels purposeful. At regular intervals, he simply stops mid-sentence. Take the play itself. 'It's such an incredible, searing interrogation of power, government and monarchy…' he says. 'You have someone with the cast-iron right to rule, who is absolutely unfit to lead, emotionally underdeveloped… And Shakespeare wrote to be played, not published. There are so many references and nuances to what an Elizabethan audience would have understood… It's about translating it from that, and delivering it to a modern audience, so the effect hopefully has the same vivid fervency and front-footedness especially politically and especially in this instance with monarchy and leadership.' It sounds interesting. So where is he turning to for inspiration for his tyrannical overlord? I ask. Trump? King Charles? The Saudis? 'That's for the viewer to see. I have very clear ideas and I hope the audience will, too…' He won't be drawn. I'm curious as to why. He shakes his head. 'You'll have to come and see it.' Later, over email, Hytner is more forthright: 'The play wonders what happens when an entirely legitimate leader is set on ruining the country he leads. No good options. Submit or resist – either way you end up with chaos.' Ahead of Wicked's late-November release, there was a preview screening in Sydney. 'It was part of this massive press tour, but for me it only lasted two weeks. The girls are incredible,' Bailey says of his co-stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, plugging the project for months on end. 'And they're still at it, still shining.' In Oz, Bailey went along with one of his sisters and her two daughters in tow. It was the first time he'd sat back and watched the film properly. 'I was so overwhelmed,' he says. 'Even now, it makes me quite emotional. If there was the purest form of joy I had as a kid, it was singing and dancing.' His family was based between Reading and Oxford. Bailey has three older sisters. As a child, he'd be dropped at basketball club at the local village hall. 'From outside, I could see my sister's ballet lessons through the window. I wanted to be in there with them. I'd go and wait at the back of their class in my Velcro trainers.' He enrolled. 'I was obsessed and loved it. Dancing and singing felt like a vocation.' Music also filled the family home. By the time Bailey was 10, his sisters would go out clubbing. 'The next morning, they'd come back, and I'd get them, hungover, to do impressions of their different friends dancing.' It was a family affair. 'We loved 90s club classics. Me, Mum, Dad and my sisters went through a phase of going into the new room – we had an extension, then called it that for 20 years – and we'd put on vinyls and dance, all of us.' One day, he stopped. 'I don't know what happened,' he says, 'for whatever reason, I didn't confidently carry through the dancing. I got self-conscious in my teens that it was signalling something else. It just didn't feel… I probably just knew it was better to be playing rugby than dancing. I became really self-conscious. There weren't other dudes dancing.' One teacher called Bailey a 'fairy' in front of his entire class. 'In your teenage years it's so raw. You lose your skin. And there are certain things in life,' he says, 'that allow people to think they know something about you, and those assumptions mean you stop doing something you love. You curb or you police yourself. You don't make the joke, or say the quip. You don't stand up and advocate for yourself or your friends. And you start to slowly crumple. That's purely on the basis of this idea of signalling. These stereotypes.' One becomes fearful, he continues, of the immense hurt that others can cause. 'Even more pain than binding yourself up slowly and creating a space of safety and refuge in your own mind or heart. That's where it gets dangerous and people stop doing the things they're supposed to. And how brilliant that we…' He pauses, surprised, concerned even – it seems – by how much he's sharing. 'It's a scary time, isn't it. On the one hand, I do think there's such a… People are so much more open-minded about what defines masculinity now. What defines heterosexuality. What defines gender. But on the other hand, there's a swing, obviously, towards… Anyway, that one will have to be a dot-dot-dot for you.' It's not that Bailey dropped performing as a child, only that things took off in a different direction. Back in ballet class, there'd been a callout from the Royal Shakespeare Company. 'They needed young boys to play Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.' He was seven years old. 'My parents weren't sure. It was so outside their world.' His mum worked in the NHS. 'And Dad was a DJ, basically, in Piccadilly Circus at [70s nightclub] Snoopys.' But a child actor? 'It's a big ask, from a kid. I was really protected by them, but they gave me this opportunity.' He was cast, and continued to be through school. 'It was extraordinary, really. I didn't miss any lessons. By 13, I'd done three productions for the RSC, and a stint in the West End. All before I hit puberty.' Then came his first Shakespeare production: Prince Arthur in King John at the Barbican with the RSC. 'I was 12 or 13, and that set me on another course. 'Fuck, OK, you can also do this.'' The memories are visceral, even now: 'The sickly, sweet smell of fake blood. Dry ice. All those senses. I was taken. That's maybe where my creative juices were channelled more, over singing and dancing.' He has worked solidly since his teenage years. Bridgerton, though, catapulted him to stardom. Afterwards, says Bailey, 'I was contending with how things would change in my life.' The press introduction, a growing, global fandom, interest in his personal life and sexuality… 'On one hand,' he says, 'the success of Bridgerton, being able to play that role, and for who I am not to affect people's perceptions; the love story between a man and a woman.' He pauses, again. Oh, actually.' Some nervous laughter. 'It's just, I'm cautious. I'm who I am and always will be. It's an extraordinary thing to see and hear the word 'gay' next to your name all the time. It's something I'm incredibly proud of, but it's also not something anyone else would be defined by. So to go straight from Bridgerton, where inevitably that was talked about, to do a series like Fellow Travellers? It came along like some sort of beacon.' Fellow Travellers, a Showtime series in which Bailey and Matt Bomer star, follows the romance between two American politicos, from the 1950s to 1980s. Production started as series one of Bridgerton started streaming. Among a predominantly queer central cast, cocooned on set, Bailey's sexuality was entirely un-noteworthy. 'All with our own experiences,' he says, 'coming together. And learning about the history… The men who endured and experienced such horrendous and extraordinary things.' Simultaneously, he was inundated with requests from charities following Bridgerton's success. 'I felt frozen by wanting to help.' The sheer scale of what was being asked and what he might do with his platform, connections and cash felt overwhelming. So, he founded the Shameless Fund. 'Raising cash and erasing shame to support the global LGBTQ+ community. We're giving grants this year. I'm so proud of it. It was all in theory. It seems so obvious and clear. We've raised a lot of money for initiatives that need cash and a platform. 'And the thing is,' he says, 'I can't be a mouthpiece. I'm an actor.' As is clear through our conversation so far, he's impassioned and engaged, but being outspoken doesn't always feel comfortable. It must be challenging, I say. So many eyes and ears pointed in his direction. 'The noise is turned up,' he says. 'And when it's about your family, or your identity… And nobody is going to question that headline, in a different outlet with their own agenda. That's what's left and it isn't true. That's why I'm really protective. I've seen something so specific about my identity be twisted. Ultimately you want peace within yourself, because the world is wild enough as it is. It's too important now, with rights being stripped away. What's so obviously looming…' Back to Wicked, I suggest. 'OK,' he says, relieved, 'so I was doing Cock [his West End stint in Mike Bartlett's comedy about sexual identity] and I knew a film of Wicked was happening.' In the dressing room before curtain up one night, Bailey recorded a self-tape. 'As I was singing, doing a karaoke version of [Fiyero's big number] Dancing Through Life, I got called to stage on the Tannoy. Fuck it, I just sent it.' There were some positive noises. 'Then the dates didn't look to be working out. Wicked said they couldn't be sure about what they wanted…' Bailey made other plans. Then, out the blue, dates shifted: the part was his. The months that followed were hectic: during one stretch, while juggling Fellow Travellers, Bridgerton and Wicked, he was filming for 34 days straight. 'I'd come from set, sleep on a flight, go straight to a Bridgerton ball, then the next day be dancing with Ari and Cynthia. Everyone else for Wicked had three months of rehearsal. I had three days.' There's a knock at the door: Bailey is being summoned back down to rehearsals. 'The conclusion to that,' he says, 'is Wicked happened and I'm so proud. Before I knew it I was Dancing Through Life…' Suffice to say, he's thrilled to be. Richard II is at the Bridge Theatre until 10 May,
