Latest news with #TheatreRoyal
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Hugh Jackman, George Clooney, Nick Jonas, and more actors are heading to the theatre to show off their acting chops
You've seen them on the silver screen, on TV shows and even in series on OTT, but now several Hollywood celebrities are heading to the theatre. From actors like George Clooney, who made his Broadway debut at 64, to singer-actor Nick Jonas taking the stage after a long break post his childhood soiree, and even actor Hugh Jackman, who is producing and acting in an off-Broadway production, these actors are reaching out to their fans in a new way. Even award-winning actor Denzel Washington has debuted on Broadway with a Shakespearean play alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. We look at 7 such actors, who are returning to the theatre and exploring new forms of acting to keep their skills sharp this year: Hugh Jackman A post shared by Hugh Jackman (@thehughjackman) Actor Hugh Jackman is no stranger to the theatre and musicals, both on the big screen and on stage. He is starring in an off-Broadway production of Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes. The play is written by Hannah Moscovitch and explores the complexities of power, consent, and narrative control in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Hugh plays the role of Jon, a college professor who becomes entangled with a student. It premiered at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York (USA) on April 28 and will run till June 18. The actor made his Broadway debut with a play titled Good Night, and Good Luck on Thursday, April 3 at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City. It's directed by David Crome and stars Clark Gregg, Glenn Fleshler, Carter Hudson and Ilana Glazer. The actor who usually proudly flaunts his silver hair has dyed it even though 'my wife is going to hate it because nothing makes you look older than when an older guy dyes his hair,' he said, adding, 'My kids are going to just laugh at me nonstop." This play is a stage adaptation of the 2005 movie about CBS news journalist Edward R. Murrow's legendary 1954 exposé on Senator Joseph McCarthy. A post shared by The Jamie Lloyd Company (@jamielloydco) The Marvel actor, who shot to fame as the mischievous Norse God Loki, had reunited with his Marvel universe costar Hayley Atwell. The duo can be seen at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, dancing and singing their hearts out for director Jamie Lloyd's production of Shakespeare's romcom, Much Ado About Nothing. The 44-year-old is playing Benedick, but this isn't his first time playing a Shakespearean role as he essayed Coriolanus on stage in 2014, and Prince Hal in BBC's adaptation of The Hollow Crown. He said, 'If I had good fortune, I'd love to play Shakespeare for the rest of my life. I really love doing it. The plays are so deep, and they contain such wisdom about being alive.' A post shared by The Jamie Lloyd Company (@jamielloydco) For Hayley Atwell, 'Theatre does for me what church can do for many people. I still really feel that.' The actor can be seen as Beatrice, dancing and singing her heart out in Shakespeare's romcom, Much Ado About Nothing. It is in production at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London till April 5. The 42-year-old, who plays the lead in Agent Carter stars opposite Tom Hiddleston, who is also a Marvel alum. A post shared by Playbill (@playbill) The singer-actor will soon be seen on Broadway, starring in Jason Robert Brown's musical The Last Five Years. Director Whitney White is helming it and Nick will be performing opposite Adrienne Warren in the play's first-ever Broadway production. The play will run from April 16 to June 22 at the Hudson Theatre in New York City, USA. The actor is playing the lead in Othello, a remake of the Shakespeare play. 'It's the most excited I've been this century,' Washington said, adding, 'Seriously. I haven't been this excited about anything I've done as I am about this.' The plot revolves around Othello, a military commander who is convinced his wife has been unfaithful by his ensign, Iago. The actor takes the stage as Iago, an ambitious lieutenant and masterful manipulator in Shakespearean play Othello. He stars alongside actor Denzel Washington, who is in the titular role. The play has been reimagined in modern with two soldiers who suffer from PTSD. The production at the Barrymore Theatre is now Broadway's top-grossing play of all time, generating $2.8 million with eight preview performances.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Barbara Ferris obituary
It was once said of the actor Barbara Ferris, who has died aged 85, that she was the only one of Joan Littlewood's girls at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in London, who started out working-class and ended up middle-class. Her father had a milk round in Soho after the second world war. Barbara progressed from training at the Italia Conti stage school, to fashion modelling and dancing – in Cole Porter's Can-Can and The Pajama Game, Bob Fosse's first show as a choreographer – at the London Coliseum in 1954-55, to important roles in plays by Edward Bond and David Hare at the Royal Court. In 1966, she was in a starring role opposite Donald Sinden in Terence Frisby's West End long-runner There's a Girl in My Soup (her role in the subsequent film was taken by Goldie Hawn). Along the way, she transformed herself from a blond, beehive hair-styled cockney 'dolly bird' to an actor of real emotional and technical command, notably in John Boorman's first feature film, Catch Us If You Can (1965) with the Dave Clark Five, a much-underrated movie, and in Interlude (1968), Kevin Billington's remake of a US Douglas Sirk film, in which, as an arts reporter, she conducted a disruptive affair with a married maestro played by Oskar Werner. The social mobility tag was applied when she married, in 1960, the film director and producer, John Quested, while appearing in cabaret at Winston's Club, Mayfair. Her honeymoon was just one night in the Dorchester hotel, as she was about to make her professional stage debut with Littlewood in Stephen Lewis's Sparrers Can't Sing. The show transferred to the West End. She was up and running. By the early 90s, Quested was both the owner and chairman of Goldcrest Films. Ferris's career did not dry up exactly, but she retired by choice, to raise the couple's family, and travel extensively with her husband's work. They had houses in Ireland and Zurich and, in London, a Chelsea apartment. The second of four children, Barbara was born in London, to Dorothy (nee Roth) and Roy Ferris. While at Italia Conti, she was already working as a teenager in TV commercials and pantomime, supplementing Roy's income. Her younger sister, Liz, became a springboard diving champion, who won a bronze medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, before going on to be a doctor. Barbara's early television work included the groundbreaking pop music show Cool for Cats (1956), alongside Amanda Barrie and Una Stubbs, and a cockney barmaid, Nona Willis, at the Rovers Return in Coronation Street (1961); Nona left the Street after 10 episodes, because she didn't understand the Lancastrian accents. There was nothing cosy about her performance as Pam in Bond's Saved (given under club conditions in 1965 – the Lord Chamberlain had censored it): an unaffectionate mother, glued to the television, of the baby stoned to death in a notorious scene; nor as the effervescent, spirited Moll, defying an 'arranged marriage' in the teeming Jacobean comedy, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1966. Both plays were at the Royal Court and directed by William Gaskill. After There's a Girl in My Soup, in which she managed a sort of beady frivolity, she was one of three liberated female teachers – the others were Anna Massey and Lynn Redgrave – in Hare's first major success, Slag (1971); Mrs Elvsted in John Osborne's adaptation of Hedda Gabler (with Jill Bennett and Brian Cox); and the hilarious spirit of a 'new broom' in a chaotic pre-internet library in Michael Frayn's Alphabetical Order (1975), playing opposite Billie Whitelaw's humane confusion as a much-loved resident librarian. The director of the Frayn play, Michael Rudman, took her into his Lyttelton-based National Theatre company for revivals of Somerset Maugham and JB Priestley before she returned to the West End as the boozy actor sister of Penelope Keith in Stanley Price's Moving (1981); and as a sexually treacherous sister in Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings (1982) – having sex with said sister's obtuse novelist husband (Nigel Havers) under a Christmas tree laden with presents and thereby setting off a gift-wrapped, loudly drumming teddy bear. Her last major London appearances were as Mavis, a dance teacher, in Richard Harris's suburban Chorus Line-type hit, Stepping Out (1984), in which she skilfully projected an uneasy blend of personal insecurity and dull professional competence, and in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound at the Greenwich Theatre in 1991, a rueful family comedy. She was twice married to Richard Briers on screen: as a vicar's wife in 18 episodes of the 1985 television sitcom All in Good Faith, and as Enid Washbrook in Michael Winner's so-so movie based on Ayckbourn's wonderful am-dram comedy, A Chorus of Disapproval (1989), featuring before-they-were-movie-stars super-suave Jeremy Irons and a sweaty, obsessive Anthony Hopkins. Her last film, which she did because her old friend from Littlewood days, Victor Spinetti, was in it, was Peter Medak's The Krays (1990). And she dabbled in fringe theatre, producing and financing two glorious little compilation shows at the King's Head in Islington in 2002: Call Me Merman and Dorothy Fields Forever, paying tribute to the great Ethel and the unjustly forgotten lyricist Dorothy, both magically recreated by her friend Angela Richards. Ferris, who loved playing golf, is survived by her husband and their children, Nicholas, Christopher and Catherine. Barbara Gillian Ferris, actor, born 27 July 1939; died 23 May 2025
ABC News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Your chance to win ABC Radio Sydney's Golden Ticket
Want tickets to some of Sydney's biggest events and experiences? Well, ABC Radio Sydney has you covered because our Golden Ticket is back! We are giving two lucky listeners the chance to win a fantastic prize package across the first 2 weeks of June. Our Golden Ticket includes: Tickets to see LeAnn Rimes at the ICC Sydney Theatre on Saturday September 13 Tickets to see LeAnn Rimes at the ICC Sydney Theatre on Saturday September 13 Tickets to see Cats at the Theatre Royal plus a VIP meet and greet after the show Tickets to see Cats at the Theatre Royal plus a VIP meet and greet after the show Tickets to see Coriolanus at the Nielson Nutshell with drinks and cheese platter included Tickets to see Coriolanus at the Nielson Nutshell with drinks and cheese platter included Tickets to see The Australian Ballet's Prism at the Sydney Opera House How to enter: Listen to 702 ABC Radio Sydney across the day for code words and the cue-to-call. You'll get the chance to enter the draw on Breakfast with the cue to call at 7.30am, Mornings with the cue to call at 10.30am, Afternoons with the cue to call at 2.30pm and Drive with the cue to call after 5.00pm. How to listen: You can listen on-air on 702 AM or on the ABC Listen app. Good luck! Competition terms and conditions apply.
ABC News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Cats The Musical Giveaway
Celebrate the 40th Australian Anniversary of Andrew Lloyd Webber's legendary musical Cats, returning to Theatre Royal Sydney this June. Cats is a spellbinding musical that brings T.S. Eliot's whimsical feline characters to life through dazzling dance, iconic music, and unforgettable costumes. Tune in to ABC Radio Canberra for your chance to see the show in Sydney with overnight accommodation for two. Giveaway details Tune in to Breakfast and Drive on ABC Radio Canberra from Monday 2 June 2025 to find out how you can win. Prize details Double pass to see Cats the Musical at the Theatre Royal in Sydney on Saturday 28 June One night accommodation at the Fullerton Hotel Visit the Cat's the Musical's website to find out more. Competition terms and conditions apply.
Irish Examiner
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
'Wicked sense of humour': John Minihan on photographing Gary Oldman in Krapp's Last Tape
'There is no Memory in Beckett. Even Krapp's Last Tape has no memory in the usual sense of associated recall, but rather, a mechanical process set in motion by a jar or vibration: the closing of or opening of a door.' - William S Burroughs, The Adding Machine Samuel Beckett knew the essence of theatre is that an actor is present in the flesh on the stage in a way in which he is not on the screen. Academy award winner Gary Oldman returned to the UK stage after a 37-year hiatus in April of this year to perform Samuel Beckett's one-act play, Krapp's Last Tape, at the York Theatre Royal. For over 50 years I have been photographing Beckett plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days and Krapp's Last Tape. All played with an array of actors from Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Billie Whitelaw, John Hurt, Michael Gambon, Max Wall, Pierre Chabert, Barry McGovern, Stephen Rea and Robert Wilson. They all bring their own exuberance to the roles they play. Trying to define Krapps Last Tape is like well trying to define the overall dramatic works of Samuel Beckett - it's complex yet simple, ever evolving and wildly addictive. Gary Oldman in Krapp's Last Tape. Picture: John Minihan When I heard last November that Oldman was doing Krapp's Last Tape, I knew that I wanted to see and photograph him. He's an actor with a wicked sense of humour. I knew he would bring something special to the part in a work that's Beckett's most approachable stage play and my favourite to photograph. Krapp is a sentimental 69-year-old listening to his 30-something voice on a spool from his archive, looking back regretfully upon a life lived in which he sacrificed love to artistic ambition. We see Krapp onstage in an old white collarless shirt, and black waistcoat in which he keeps his pocket-watch and a banana. I told Gary about the time I photographed Max Wall who played Krapp at the Riverside Studios in London in 1987, bringing his own brand of music-hall humour and relishing the word 'spool'. 'Spoool,' he crooned. I was in the dressing room with Max where he started eating the banana; staff were dispatched to get another banana before the show could start. Music-hall humour is strewn through the world of Samuel Beckett, and the plays often benefit in performance from a less reverent attitude than is usually the case. It's becoming harder to photograph plays in the West End of London. I was invited to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London in 2024 to see Waiting for Godot. The producers could not have been more helpful, but they had their own photographer doing the stills for newspaper publicity and reviews. Back in the day there was always a photo call for the main theatre photographers in London. I knew Douglas H Jeffrey, the doyen of theatre photographers who I first met when I was an apprentice in the Daily Mail darkroom in 1962. Douglas supplied Fleet Street's newspapers with beautiful black and white photographs of shows in the London's West End. He loved theatre, always wore a beret and an artist smock with pockets to hold film and lense. He was never interested in being interviewed about his work. I remember he photographed the playwright Joe Orton in 1967 only months before he was murdered in Islington by his partner Kenneth Halliwell. Gary Oldman played Orton in the film, Prick Up Your Ears, in 1987. My friend Adrian Dunbar, who has directed Beckett in Ireland, London and Paris, was in York for nearly a week supporting Gary in rehearsals of Krapp's Last Tape. I met Gary with Adrian, and the pair were happy, laughing and joking. They go back as actors to the early 1970s to the Royal Court in London and the RSC. Listening to them, it could have been a scene from Estragon and Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. John Minihan's image of John Hurt in Krapps Last Tape in 1998. I was also relishing the opportunity to go back to the beautiful city of York which hosted its first Beckett Festival in June 2011. I had an exhibition of my Beckett photographs at York University together with a range of world-class writers like the Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, who I photographed outside the door of York Minister. The event also featured a performance by the renowned Gare St Lazare players with Cork actor Conor Lovett performing his arresting adaptions of Samuel Beckett's short stories, First Love and The End. I loved being back in York with Adrian and meeting Gary and his photographer wife Giselle and their children. The show is dedicated to John Hurt and Michael Gambon. The production team even used the same recorder that those great actors used for their shows at Dublin's Gate Theatre. Samuel Beckett would, I believe, have given the nod to Gary Oldman who seemed to have found his perfect home. Dublin-born photographer John Minihan has been based in West Cork for many years. As well as capturing famous images of the likes of Princess Diana, Edna O'Brien, and Francis Bacon, he also took several photographs of Samuel Beckett Read More Barry Keoghan and Nicola Coughlan provide star power for Fastnet Film Festival in West Cork
