Latest news with #JohnTiffany
The Guardian
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
She's Behind You review – Christmas comes early to Edinburgh with panto songs, sweets and subversive spirit
She stands before us in a blue gingham frock, towering wig and a 'hideous yet age-appropriate leisure shoe'. She is Dorothy Blawna-Gale and she is a pantomime dame. The creation of Johnny McKnight – Scotland's finest proponent of the form – she is sharp-tongued, lascivious and bumptiously lovable. Unlike her usual festive appearances at the Tron in Glasgow and the Macrobert in Stirling, she is here, out of season, not just to entertain – which she does in abundance – but to educate. In a show that grew out of a lecture at the University of Glasgow in memory of the late academic Alasdair Cameron, a champion of popular theatre, McKnight and director John Tiffany throw in songs, sweets and copious audience interaction to celebrate panto's radical potential. It is very funny, but the real soul of this tremendous show lies in the personal story McKnight tells. From his earliest memory of seeing Johnny Beattie at the Ayr Gaiety, when he realised 'You don't just see panto; panto sees you,' he takes us through his first tentative steps as an actor playing the comic silly billy role, hiding behind the character's asexual charm, and then, in 2006, his first dame. But something was wrong: in sticking so rigidly to tradition, the tired assumptions, the dated jokes, he was repressing his true self and muting the anarchic possibilities of the form. It was time to kill the old. In the coming seasons, he upended the cliches, corrected the gender balance and acknowledged his own sexuality. By 2018, he was fielding two male romantic leads in Mammy Goose and audiences did not just accept it: they demanded more. Along the way, he faced sectarianism, homophobia and serious ethical questions, but sticking to the principles of always punching up, thinking his choices through and representing the marginalised, he reclaimed panto's subversive spirit and made it, hilariously, his own. Oh yes he did. At the Traverse, Edinburgh, until 24 August. All our Edinburgh festival reviews.
Khaleej Times
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
Oscar winner Cate Blanchett aims to give up acting
Actress Cate Blanchett, who is known for her roles in movies, including Aviator and Blue Jasmine and has been a two-time Academy Award winner, shocked her fans when she expressed her wish to step away from acting and the film industry one day. During an interview with the UK's Radio Times Magazine, the actress admitted that she thinks of giving up acting because she aspires to try different things in life. While introducing herself, the actress reportedly hesitated to announce herself as the actress, which was pointed out by co-director John Tiffany. She replied, "I did, didn't I? It's because I'm giving up," as quoted by Deadline. The Black Bag star clarified, "My family roll their eyes every time I say it, but I mean it. I am serious about giving up acting." She added that there are "a lot of things I want to do with my life." While narrating her experience as a celebrity, the actress remarked that she doesn't love the interview process. "No one is more boring to me than myself and I find other people much more interesting. I find myself profoundly dull. When you go on a talk show, or even here now, and then you see soundbites of things you've said pulled out and italicized, they sound really loud. I'm not that person," she said. The actress will also appear in the star-studded alien invasion comedy Alpha Gang by the Zellner brothers. (ANI)
BBC News
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Wild Rose: Glasgow country music film blooms as a musical
Long before Taylor Swift made country music cool, a character called Rose Lynn Harlan took root in writer Nicole Taylor's head."I was just obsessed with this girl who was just chatting away in my mind," she recalls."I wanted to bring her to life but back in 2009, country music was the love which daren't speak its name. It was really cringey."Sixteen years later, Nicole has not only brought Rose Lynn to the big screen in the Bafta-nominated film Wild Rose, but a stage version is about to have its world premiere at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in story is the same: Rose-Lynn is a former prisoner and single mum in Glasgow working as a cleaner by day and fronting a country band by night, with dreams of fame tempered by the reality of caring for her two young rooted in Glasgow's real-life country music scene, as home to the UK's biggest country club the Grand Ole Opry and Celtic Connections' Transatlantic Sessions. The film version starred Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn, with Julie Walters playing her long suffering mother had its Scottish premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival in whose screen credits include Three Girls, The Nest and the recent Netflix hit One Day was delighted when the film won audiences and awards, including Best Actress and Best Feature Film at the Scottish she was already thinking where Rose-Lynn could go next and despite never having written for the stage, she reserved the rights for the show."I just knew it was naturally theatrical," she says."The way she expresses herself through country music. What is that, if not a musical?"During the pandemic, she wrote to director John Tiffany who had directed Black Watch for the National Theatre of Scotland."I loved how audacious it was, how Scottish it was and I wanted it to have that amazing Scottishness and energy."John Tiffany had moved to London, where he'd directed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Once, a musical adaptation of the Oscar winning film which went on to win eight Tony he already knew Rose-Lynn. "I had seen the film in London when it first came out and absolutely adored it," he says."That last scene with Jessie singing the song Glasgow in the Fruitmarket where Black Watch had been first staged, had me and my partner in tears."I was so homesick for Scotland, having left five years earlier and I said to my partner as we left the cinema, if I had still been working in Scottish theatre, I'd be all over that like a rash."The musical is now in the final stages of rehearsal, ahead of its world premiere in features songs by Wyonna Judd, The Chicks, Patti Griffin and Dolly Parton - as well as that original song Glasgow (No Place Like Home) which reduced John Tiffany to nominated actress and singer Dawn Sievewright, whose credits include Legally Blonde in London's West End and Twelfth Night at the Lyceum will play Rose-Lynn. She too recalls being "blown away" by "this film about a wild Glaswegian lassie"."I love slipping into her skin," she says."I think she's the most exciting, unpredictable emotional character I have ever played. "It's testing me to every end. The singing, the dancing, the way the set moves, the way the people move. "It's a swirl of a world which is amazing to be part of." Blythe Duff takes on the role of her mother. Best known for her long running role in TV's Taggart, she has been in a number of theatre productions in recent years, including Harry Potter and the Cursed says the role has brought her full circle, having started her career in Edinburgh with the musical infused Wildcat Theatre company. The company was co-founded by Dave Anderson, whose son Davey Anderson has worked with Sarah Travis on the orchestration and arrangements for Wild music is performed onstage by a band of eight musicians playing 14 different instruments, and of course there's line also believes that the show brings country music full circle."I think we've always had a strong connection," she says."Partly because of the Grand Ole Opry in Glasgow but also because of Celtic Connections and in particular, the Transatlantic Sessions. "Those moments have brought incredible country singers to Scotland so we've been really lucky and well served and that audience has been there for years and I think this will just tap into that."Dawn agrees: "We love anything that's about big emotion."We love to laugh hard, cry hard, shout hard. Country music encapsulates that in a way that there's no shame. "I got dumped, I'm bankrupt, and I've got nowhere to live. There'll be a song about that." Wild Rose opens at The Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh on March 14th, with previews from 6 March.
