Television - The Prisoner. Theatre - Enron. Theatre - Enron - Broadhurst.

[updated 28 March 2010]

• The Prisoner will premiere on AMC Sunday 15 November [link]
• Enron
• Audio of the whatsonstage.com Q&A [link]
  
• The Broadway transfer will premiere in April 2010, and will have an American cast 1|2

Harold Pinter celebration at Lord's

[updated 3 October]


Artist: Joe Hill. Source: lordstaverners.org

A Harold Pinter celebration took place at Lord's Cricket Ground yesterday - a celebrity cricket match at Lord's Nursery Ground was followed by a tribute in the Long Room. A portrait of Pinter by Joe Hill was auctioned as well. Proceeds from the celebration will go towards purchasing a minibus for the cricket-loving kids in Hackney.
People who attended include Lady Antonia Fraser, Janie Dee, Peter Hall, Bill Nighy, Jeremy Irons, Jason Isaacs, Roger Lloyd Pack, Samuel West, Timothy West, Penelope Wilton, Harry Burton, Fintan McKeown, Dickie Wyse, Roger Davidson, Ian MaKinnon, Ben Nealon, Robert Powell, Paul Smith, Michael Billington, Somit Dutta, Mike Brearley, Mike Atherton, Mike Gatting, Jeremy Coney, Ian Smith and Chris Tarrant.

Bill Nighy was interviewed on Today last Saturday and he mentioned there would be "songs from Janie Dee" at the tribute. His interview is on this page (scroll down to 0851).
An excerpt from the Guardian:

"...Theatrical readings in the evening will see [Jeremy] Irons take to the stage with Tim West to perform an excerpt from No Man's Land, and [Mike] Brearley reading from The Caretaker..."

A tweet from Sam West about the game:

At Lords playing for Taverners vs Gaieties for Pinter celebration. Our opening pair Atherton and Gatting. I'm in at number eight. Oo-er.

I tweeted Sam about the celebration (and thanks to him for replying!):


A recap of the celebration is here at Cricket Family.


Links

The Lord's Taverners 1|2
The Independent [link]
Guardian [link]
Telegraph [link]
The Arts Desk [link]
whatsonstage.com [link]

Film - An Education. Theatre - The Pride. Theatre - Measure For Measure. Dan Stevens - Radio - Dickens Confidential. BBC Radio.

• An Education
• Carey Mulligan and Lone Scherfig interviews 1|2|3
• Eight clips from the film [link]
  
• Carey will receive the breakthrough actress award at the Hollywood Film Festival [link]
  
• Ben Whishaw, Hugh Dancy and Andrea Riseborough will star in the American premiere of The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell at the MCC Theater (27 January-14 March 2010).
  Rory Kinnear, Anna Maxwell Martin and Ben Miles will star in Measure For Measure at the Almeida. [link]
• BBC Radio
  
• Series 2 of Dickens Confidential will be repeated from 29 September [link]
• Matt Lucas, Gina McKee and Hugh Bonneville star in the Afternoon Play Hoffnung - Drawn to Music [link]
• Simon Russell Beale is the reader in The Essay Voltaire and the Voices of the Enlightenment [link]

Theatre - Enron. Theatre - Enron - Broadhurst. Film - Enron.

Enron will transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End. Previews begin 16 January, press night is 26 January, and it will be booking until 8 May. The production will also transfer to Broadway but details have not been announced yet.
Columbia Pictures has acquired the screen rights for the play, which will be adapted by its author Lucy Prebble. The film will be produced by Laura Ziskin (Spider-Man).


Links

West End transfer:
The Stage [link]
The Official London Theatre Guide [link]
whatsonstage.com [link]

Film adaptation:
Variety [link]
Hollywood Reporter [link]
Broadway World [link]

Samuel West - Theatre - Enron

[updated 19 March 2011]






A tweet from Sam:

"End-on ENRON: tore through my opening last night. Am no longer a Royal Court virgin. About time too..."

Reviews

Financial Times
"...Skilling, then, in Samuel West's superb performance, is not simply a villain. He is positively creepy when we first meet him: a pasty-faced nerd who harangues his colleagues for not understanding his ingenious mark-to-market idea. And there is a chilly ruthlessness about him as he manoeuvres to become president of the company. But West also conveys the loneliness and seething impatience of a man who is much cleverer than those around him, and who has an almost visionary grasp of the potential of the market. As the company share price rockets, West's Skilling evolves into a slimmer, sleeker individual: madly charismatic and high, like Richard III, on his own brilliance..."

City AM
"...At the heart of the action is Jeff Skilling, the amoral nerd who turned Enron from an energy company into a trading colossus. Samuel West delivers a blazing performance as Skilling..."

whatsonstage.com
"...at its centre is the tragic figure of the Enron president, Jeffrey Skilling, whom Samuel West brilliantly presents as a geeky, rather childish champion of the mark-to-market philosophy turning first into a predatory shark of the trading floor and then an anguished victim of his own obsessive empire-building..."

Evening Standard
"...At the centre is Skilling. When we first see him he is a hopeless nerd, yet he transforms himself into a swaggering Übermensch. It’s a role in which Sam West positively revels; he is perfect as this suave, grandiloquent and crass overreacher.
Prebble suggests that the trouble with economic evangelists of his stripe is that their message is so appealingly fantastic. We are sucked in by their stories, and we keep being sucked in, rather than learning to be sceptical..."

Guardian
"...Lucy Prebble's play and Rupert Goold's production are so strong that they survive the move. What they vividly offer is not a lecture on corporate madness but an ultra-theatrical demonstration of it at work...Samuel West is hugely impressive as the self-deluded Skilling. It is difficult to feel sympathy for such a man, whose deregulation policies did so much damage, but West reminds us of the global complicity in money worship. Amanda Drew as his rival, Tim Pigott-Smith as Enron's avuncular founder, and Tom Goodman-Hill as the greed-driven Fastow, haunted by the scaly raptors which symbolise the shadow-companies, are also first-rate..."

The Arts Desk
"...At the centre of the play is Jeffrey Skilling, Enron's top executive, played with immense flair and sympathy by Sam West, who grows before our eyes from a shy nerdish geek into one of those Master-of-the-Universe types whose overweening confidence and blatant disregard for mere mortals makes you impatient to see, and enjoy, their comeuppance...Supported by equally superb acting by Tim Pigott-Smith as Lay, Tom Goodman-Hill as Fastow and Amanda Drew as Roe, West presents Skilling as a complex character and thus anchors the play, which is brimming with ideas, in human reality..."

The Times
"...it’s Samuel West’s superb playing of this role [Jeff Skilling] that gives the play a near-tragic feel. You shouldn’t sympathise with a man who ruined thousands, but he’s the victim of his obsession, which is to please his boss, Tim Pigott-Smith’s folksy yet ruthless Ken Lay, by keeping the stock price high. Imagine a plump school swot losing his nerdishness along with his specs as he grows in sleekness and hubris, only to end up an embattled, sobbing wreck; and you have imagined the human graph that West charts..."


Articles

Telegraph [link]
The Times [link]


Pictures

Production:
unknown/telegraph.co.uk, thisislondon.co.uk
Tristram Kenton/guardian.co.uk

After party (guests included David Tennant, Richard Wilson and Harriet Walter) and press night curtain call

Entertainment news

• Toronto International Film Festival
• Interviews featuring Ben Whishaw and Jane Campion for Bright Star 1|2|3|4
  
• A Single Man
• Colin Firth video interview from Entertainment Weekly [link]
  
• The Weinstein Company will distribute the film in Germany and the U.S. [link]
• Julianne Moore interview from Baz Bamigboye's Daily Mail column [link]
  
• Rupert Friend The Young Victoria interview and premiere pictures 1|2
  
• Harry Brown
• Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer interviews 1|2|3
• Premiere and after party pictures 1|2
• Some premiere pictures and portraits from mata090680 [link]
• Glorious 39
• Pictures of Bill Nighy, Romola Garai, Stephen Poliakoff and Julie Christie 1|2|3|4|5
• Bill Nighy, Romola Garai, Stephen Poliakoff and Julie Christie interviews 1|2|3
  
• Andrew Garfield attended the The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus premiere 1|2
  
• The Damned United
• Michael Sheen interviews 1|2|3|4|5
• Premiere pictures [link]
• Clive Owen interviews about The Boys are Back 1|2|3|4|5
  
• An Education
• Carey Mulligan, Dominic Cooper, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Nick Hornby interviews 1|2|3
• Premiere pictures 1|2|3
• James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn will star in The Conspirator, a drama about events following the assassination of President Lincoln directed by Robert Redford [link]
• Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush will star in the film The King's Speech, which will be directed by Tom Hooper [link]
• Casting for Tomorrow, When the War Began [link]

The Observer

Fortunately, the Observer will not be closing. People such as Colin Firth, Armando Iannucci, Nigella Lawson, David Morrissey and Samuel West have opposed its proposed closure. (via @AIannucci) [link]

Hayley Atwell - Television - The Pillars of the Earth. Samuel West - Narration - High Flight. Carey Mulligan. BBC Radio drama.

[updated 19 March 2011]

The Pillars of the Earth official website has been updated.

Sam will narrate poetry by John Gillespie Magee for the BBC Radio 4 documentary High Flight, which will be broadcast in November (via United Agents) [link]
(Sam has previously narrated poetry by Magee - a clip of "High Flight" is here.)

Carey is featured in People's 25 Under 25: Hollywood's Hottest Young Stars (via ONTD) and Baz Bamigboye's Daily Mail column 1|2

• BBC Radio drama
• Julian Rhind-Tutt and Hattie Morahan star in the Drama on 3 The Twyborn Affair [link]
• The Complete Smiley continues with the Classic Serial The Looking Glass War starring Simon Russell Beale (as George Smiley), Ian McDiarmid, Patrick Kennedy and Fenella Woolgar [link]
• Rory Kinnear and Benedict Cumberbatch star in the Afternoon Play Good Evening [link]
• Dominic Cooper narrates A Land Without Magic for Big Toe Books [link]

Rosamund Pike - Film - Surrogates

There are some new stills from Surrogates at Daemon's Movies [link]

Entertainment news

• Marvellous Antichrist poster by Jeremy Saunders (via The Wrap and Transmission) [link]
  
• Toronto International Film Festival
• Ben Whishaw attended the Bright Star premiere and had some portraits done 1|2
• Emily Mortimer attended the Harry Brown premiere [link]
• Michael Sheen and Carey Mulligan were at the Sony Pictures Classics Party [link]
• Io Sono L'Amore - I Am Love: portraits, an interview with Tilda Swinton and director Luca Guadagnino, and pictures from the premiere 1|2|3
  
• A portrait of Michael Sheen [link]
• Nineteen Australian films will be shown at the festival [link]
  
• Tom Sturridge and Juno Temple are included in Teen Vogue's Young Hollywood feature [link]
• Guillermo del Toro has an animation deal with Disney [link]
  
• A Single Man
• Trailer (via ONTD) [link]
  
• Venice Film Festival photocall [link]
  
• Colin Firth won the best actor prize at the Venice Film Festival [link]
  
• Article about the film from Variety [link]
  
• Tilda Swinton & Luca Guadagnino and Judi Dench interviews tilda & luca|judi
• Bruce Beresford will direct the film Zebras [link]
• Eva Green and Ewan McGregor will star in Last Word, a film that will be directed by David McKenzie [link]
• Mary and Max won best feature at the Australian Directors Guild awards. The film's director is Adam Elliot. [link]
• Rupert Friend and Tamsin Greig will star in The Little Dog Laughed at the Garrick Theatre (via The Medium is Not Enough) [link]
• David Tennant will star in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men [link]
• Blog post from The Life of Wylie about series 2 of Merlin [link]
  
• Richard Curtis will write an episode of Doctor Who [link]

Rosamund Pike. Theatre - Hedda Gabler. Film - Surrogates. Carey Mulligan - Film - An Education. Hayley Atwell - Radio - Blood of the Daleks.

• Rosamund will star as Hedda Gabler in a production directed by Adrian Noble in February next year at the Theatre Royal, Bath [link]
• A new trailer and two clips for Surrogates (via Ace Showbiz) 1|2|3
• Nice mentions of Carey:
• Baz Bamigboye's Daily Mail column [link]
• Excerpt from an LA Times interview with An Education screenwriter Nick Hornby
  

  "...'She's serious about her work and the kinds of roles that she wants. I don't think she's going to get too sucked into it [award season madness] all'..."

• Blood of the Daleks will be broadcast on BBC7 this week. Hayley plays Asha. [link]

Emma Thompson, Ruth Wilson, Samuel West.

• Film festival
  
• An article from the Stage about the film festival Ruth is planning with Emma [link]
• Previous posts about the festival 1|2|3
• An excerpt from a statement Sam wrote for the Stand Up For the Observer's website:
  

  "Leaving aside the obvious (The Observer is authoritative, incisive, funny and stuffed with great writing), we have to ask ourselves at a time like this: what makes a civilised society?..."

Film - London Film Festival

• Clive Owen, Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson, Dominic Cooper, Juno Temple and Hugh Bonneville will be attending [link]
• Premieres and screenings include The Boys Are Back, Bright Star, An Education, Nowhere Boy, Balibo, Astro Boy, Glorious 39, A Single Man, The Limits of Control, The Disappearance of Alice Creed and Don't Worry About Me [link]

Theatre - Enron - Broadhurst. Samuel West. Theatre - Enron. Film - Albert Schweitzer.

[updated 28 March 2010]

• Enron will transfer to the West End and Broadway after its sold out run at the Royal Court 1|2
• Albert Schweitzer
  
• Screencaps from the trailer, which can be viewed on the film's official site and Youtube. Thanks to Monika (FilmographySam) for the update. Click thumbnails for full size.
  
• Monika has uploaded an English-subtitled version of the trailer [link]

Ruth Wilson - Television - The Prisoner. Rosamund Pike - Film - Surrogates. Film - We Want Sex. BBC Radio.

• There's an interview about The Prisoner with Ruth and co-star Jamie Campbell-Bower from Nylon [link]
• Three TV spots for Surrogates, which is released in the US 25 September [link]
• Paramount Pictures International will distribute We Want Sex in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The film stars Sally Hawkins, Andrea Riseborough and Rosamund Pike. 1|2
• BBC Radio:
• Colin Firth will be on Front Row on Monday [link]
• Anna Maxwell-Martin and Sharon Gavin star in the Woman's Hour Drama Au Pairs [link]
• David Tennant and Julia Davis star in the Saturday Play The Wooden Overcoat [link]

Entertainment news

• Mad Men has been renewed for a fourth season [link]
  
• Daniel Craig will star in the film Dream House which will be directed by Jim Sheridan [link]
  
• Andrew Buchan, Jon Hamm, Zooey Deschanel, Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant and Joseph Gordon-Levitt interviews andrew|jon|zooey|ricky & stephen|joseph
  
• Boardwalk Empire, starring Steve Buscemi and Kelly Macdonald, has been picked up for 11 episodes. The pilot was directed by Martin Scorsese. [link]
  
• Stephen Frears will direct Tamara Drewe, starring Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper and Tamsin Greig [link]
• Scans from Nylon about Mad Men, Entourage and The Prisoner 1|2
• Quentin Tarantino will receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film [link]
• A picture of Michael Sheen as Aro from New Moon [link]
• Coriolanus, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, has been selected for International Financing Forum (IFF) which will take place during the Toronto International Film Festival [link]
• Article about the Australian International Movie Convention from the Australian [link]