Latest news with #MinnieDriver
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lenny Henry wants everyone to join in with this life-affirming piece of theatre
It takes a brave soul to embark on a live stage show which relies on the participation of dozens of audience members: the theatrical equivalent of wobbling across a tightrope while juggling fiery chainsaws. Yet it's key to this popular 2014 play, which makes its long-awaited West End debut after being performed in more than 80 countries. While ostensibly a solo piece, in practice it's a true group effort – though, on its opening night, the blazingly charismatic Lenny Henry resolutely led the charge. The story centres on a man whose clinically depressed mum attempts suicide when he's seven years old. He begins writing her a list of everything that's brilliant about the world, and keeps adding to it throughout his life. The show's performer hands multiple audience members numbered cards in advance: when he reaches that number on the list, they're invited to call out their entry. A few people are also asked to play supporting characters, like a taciturn dad or a sock-puppet-wielding school counsellor. Henry sets a high bar in this new run, which features a rotating cast of actors succeeding him over the next three months: Minnie Driver, Sue Perkins, Ambika Mod, and Jonny Donahoe (the show's co-creator, with Duncan Macmillan, and its original performer). Macmillan co-directs here with Jeremy Herrin, who helmed the former's award-winning play People, Places & Things. It's hardly surprising that Henry, who's been doing stand-up since he was 15, is so at ease with this high-wire, interactive format. But it's still enormous fun watching him take charge of the intimate, in-the-round @sohoplace auditorium and roll with the punches. When an audience member stumbles or says something unexpected, Henry coaches them warmly while adding wry ad libs and pulling expressive faces. On my night, the woman playing his girlfriend confessed she couldn't read the blurb of the book he'd handed her, and several people volunteered their glasses. A delighted Henry quipped: 'It's like Specsavers in here!' But, crucially, this is just-about-controlled chaos: Henry always leads us back to the story, which has deeply affecting moments. He slips into a shy, hunched physicality as the boy and, when he cradles a jacket in his arms, we fully believe it's his beloved dog, Ronnie Barker, being put to sleep. He poignantly describes this first experience of death as 'a loved one becoming an object'. Macmillan has also personalised the script for each performer, which enhances Henry's confessional delivery. When his dad cooks his girlfriend lasagne, for instance, Henry protests: 'What kind of Jamaican are you?' The piece wrestles with weighty ideas, like how a parent's mental illness affects their child's development. And the communal storytelling format remains a neat demonstration of the play's central thesis: it's vital to reach out and connect with one another, whether through therapy or theatre. This life-affirming show proves that and more – an absolute tonic.
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Minnie Driver signs up for lead role as Every Brilliant Thing comes to West End
Minnie Driver has joined the list of stars performing Every Brilliant Thing – a play told by one actor with the help of almost the entire audience – in London's West End. The show opens next month at @sohoplace with Lenny Henry in the principal role; later it will be played by Sue Perkins, Ambika Mod and Jonny Donahoe, the comedian who presided over its triumphant run at the Edinburgh fringe in 2014 and far beyond. For Driver it marks a return to the venue where she performed White Rabbit Red Rabbit for one night last November. That theatrical experiment required a different actor to perform the play, sight unseen, each time. Driver, who shot to fame in the 1990s films Circle of Friends and Good Will Hunting, is no stranger to the London stage. In 2003 she starred in the West End alongside Matthew Perry in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Every Brilliant Thing, written by Duncan Macmillan with Donahoe, is based around a list created by the narrator to remind his mum, after her first suicide attempt, of everything that's worth living for. 'I have wanted to do a play in London again for the longest time,' said Driver. 'I didn't want to take on a big classical role, walk down a well-trodden path. I wanted to find something that would be new to a lot of audiences, that was both funny and sad and unique in its storytelling – something unusual that you'd talk about on the train home, think about the next day at work. I knew how I wanted it to make me feel, I just didn't know what it was. Then I read Duncan's play.' Driver said that 'the thought of doing a one-person show is like staring up at an enormous mountain that you're expected to free solo', but added that the play's 'clarity, humanity and humour struck me really deeply. I am terrified and excited in equal measure to tell this brilliant, beautiful story and to be in such a great company.' The play's run has now been extended to 8 November. It will be directed by Jeremy Herrin and Macmillan, marking the show's West End debut after being performed in more than 80 countries and adapted into a film.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gorgeous at 55! Minnie Driver Shares Rare Peek at Summer Vacation With Teenage Son
Gorgeous at 55! Minnie Driver Shares Rare Peek at Summer Vacation With Teenage Son originally appeared on Parade. Actress Minnie Driver is embracing family time this summer—even if it's just for five days. The stunning 55-year-old, who burst onto the scene with a star-making role as Skylar in Good Will Hunting, is set to star in the upcoming season of the Netflix comedy Emily in Paris. That means she'll be spending her summer filming in Rome (tough to feel sorry for her), leaving just five days off to vacation with shared her 'happy/sad' plans to work straight through until November in a heartfelt social media post. Pictured in the post are her 16-year-old son, Henry, and her longtime partner of six years, the handsome Addison O'Dea. The actress wrote, 'I have 5 days off between now and November 9th. My guys are going back to California and I'm working through the summer and autumn (happily/sadly…it oscillates). This is day 1.' Well-wishers quickly flooded the comments section, praising Driver's 'stunning' appearance and 'beautiful family.'In addition to Driver's ageless beauty, fans were thrilled to catch a rare glimpse of Henry. One wrote, 'He's so tall!' while another simply exclaimed, 'HENRY!!!' 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 Gorgeous at 55! Minnie Driver Shares Rare Peek at Summer Vacation With Teenage Son first appeared on Parade on Jul 8, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 8, 2025, where it first appeared.
Daily Mail
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
British-American actress Minnie Driver marks Independence Day with sweet pregnancy throwback snaps
Minnie Driver marked Independence Day on Friday with a series of patriotic throwback snaps. The British-American actress, 55, notably began the montage with a snap of herself pregnant and her bump painted in the stars and stripes. Celebrating America's love of fast food on another 4th of July gone by, Minnie - who shares son Henry, 16, with ex-partner producer Timothy J. Lea - revealed that she even made a sweet cake in the shape of a burger. Other snaps saw her in a stars and stripes golf buggy and with Henry as he held a first-place medal won in a watermelon seed spitting competition. She wrote: 'Celebrating the spirit of independence - from pregnant belly decorations, to our annual golf cart parade in Malibu, to the cake I made in the shape of a burger, to Henry winning the watermelon seed spittin' competition. 'To me standing eating watermelon rather than spitting the seeds, to my old, patriotic boy who loved this day, mainly because people were drunk and dropped their hotdogs.' Minnie's reflective post comes after she recently joked about getting a facelift after candidly opening up about being middle-aged in Hollywood. 'Guys,' she said in a perfect deadpan in a new video she posted to her Instagram page in December: 'are we all getting new faces for Christmas?' The Good Will Hunting actress continued: 'Cause where you getting them from? And do you think they're gonna run out? And has anyone got a discount code?' She threw another joke into the caption, writing: 'Quite hard to put under the tree. #newface #faceshop #discountcodes.' Shortly before, the actress shared a makeup-free selfie to her Instagram page. Allowing the camera to get a close view of her features, she used the caption to share the secret to her own luminous complexion. Her radiant appearance was the work of Keren Bartov, an Israeli aesthetician whose clients have included Gal Gadot, Demi Moore, Kim Kardashian and Julia Roberts. Minnie wrote alongside the selfie: 'Ok, I'm pretty vain, so posting pictures without a scrap of makeup and un-touched up, are rare.' She added: 'The only reason I'm doing it now is because I've been ill with flu and have felt every one of my years recently, and I'm pretty astonished that my friend Keren can make me look like this: Christmas glow without the 5 mulled wines.' Earlier this year, Minnie reflected on how the Hollywood climate has changed in terms of offering opportunities to women in middle age. 'We're allowed to be over 40 now. It is different,' she told People during a panel discussion that was held over the summer. 'I don't know what that was done waking up to the idea that women are really just hitting their stride when they've, I think been through the gauntlet of only being seen sexually,' the The Phantom Of The Opera actress shared. Now, she said, roles for women are able to embrace the 'extraordinary expansiveness that comes with getting older,' including but not limited to motherhood. 'I watched a film the other night that I really wanted to be in and I am so glad I'm not in that bloody film,' Minnie candidly confessed.
BreakingNews.ie
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
In Pictures: Cate Blanchett's shell-themed dress warms the cockles at Serpentine
Cate Blanchett brought the seaside to central London as she turned up in an eyecatching dress for the Serpentine Summer Party. The actress warmed the cockles of admirers with a shell-themed outfit as she joined figures from the world of art, showbiz and politics. Advertisement Pop diva Lily Allen, Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan and Minnie Driver also attended the event which is an annual fixture in London's cultural scene. Minnie Driver and a guest (Doug Peters/PA) Dina Asher-Smith (Doug Peters/PA) Lady Amelia Spencer and Lady Eliza Spencer (Doug Peters/PA) Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan and his wife Saadiya Khan (Doug Peters/PA) Kelly Osbourne (Doug Peters/PA) Lord Frederick Windsor and Lady Frederick Windsor (Doug Peters/PA) Philippa Perry and Sir Grayson Perry (Doug Peters/PA) Eiza Gonzalez (Doug Peters/PA) Beth Ditto and Charles Jeffery (Doug Peters/PA) Jourdan Dunn (Doug Peters/PA) Georgia May Jagger (Doug Peters/PA) Celia Imrie (Doug Peters/PA) Lily Allen (Doug Peters/PA) Joanne Froggatt (Doug Peters/PA)
