Charles Edwards - Trying Again and Blithe Spirit

(click the thumbnails for full size. video source: Sky Living HD)
The Trying Again website has been updated with a video of Jo Joyner and Charles discussing the show. Trying Again premieres today on Sky Living HD.

A couple of quotes from recent reviews of Blithe Spirit:

Glasgow Theatre Blog
"The stand-out star though, is Charles Edwards without doubt one of the UK’s finest actors. He careers from suave imperturbability to abject panic when Elvira threatens his cosy existence with consummate ease and his comic timing is masterful."

Chris n that
"Charles Edwards is a delight as Charles [Condomine], effortlessly spinning his lines with the lightest touch like the deftest of tennis players."

Samuel West - TV, 50p for Culture, music

Sam confirmed on Twitter that he will be in the third series of Mr Selfridge. Filming begins this week.
He is in this Sunday's episode of The Crimson Field. It was filmed at the same time as Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (his Twitter, @exitthelemming).

Two weeks ago, Sam spoke about 50p for Culture on Front Row (via @exitthelemming). He also wrote a blog post on the Arts Funding Ning, "Welcoming Sajid Javid, the new Culture Minister".

A video of Sam presenting the DVD award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards is now on Youtube (via @MusicMagazine). Here are some screencaps from the clip (click them for full size).

The April 2014 issue of the BBC Music Magazine has a positive review of Nocturne. An excerpt:

"Experienced in the context of Harriet Walter's and Samuel West's compelling exploration of the Chopin-George Sand love affair through their letters and diary entries, the music [performed by Lucy Parham] assumes a special sense of poignancy." (text source: perthfestival.co.uk)

Booking is now open for Peace in Our Time? a series of concerts by the Garsington Opera Orchestra (6 July at the Wormsley Estate). Click here for tickets.
Sam will perform at the Hatfield House Music Festival in late September. Booking opens in May.

Waste (directed by Sam in 2008) was chosen by Mark Lawson as one of his top ten productions at the Almeida (The Guardian).

Charles Edwards - Blithe Spirit press round up

Reviews

Charles' comic timing and "excellent" performance have been mentioned in several reviews.

Theatre and me
"Edwards is the perfect English gentleman – even in the throes of madness and it is hilarious to watch him become unravelled by his visions of Elvira."

4 Your Excitement
"I found his performance throughout highly enjoyable and his comic timing during the scenes with the ghostly Elvira was perfect."

Vickster51corner/@vickster51
"For me, the night however belongs to Charles Edwards as Condomine. His comic timing is superb and I can’t think of anyone more suited for the role. He also has fantastic chemistry with both Janie Dee and Jemima Rooper, which is incredibly enjoyable to watch."

The greatest of all art forms
"The always reliable Charles Edwards holds the piece together brilliantly as Condomine, with his cut-glass accent and perfectly coiffed hair he seems born to perform Coward."

Kieran J Knowles
"The performances by the rather small company are outstanding. Charles Edwards is excellent asthe writer looking investigating the world of the unseen, Charles Condomine."

A night at the theatre
"The real star for me though is Charles Edwards as (funnily enough) Charles. It is priceless seeing him cope with his both wives."

Cultural Capital
"Charles Edwards as ‘astral bigamist’ Charles Condomine is hilarious... Edwards’s comic timing is fantastic especially in the conversations with [wives] Elvira and Ruth..."

TNT Magazine
"...suave Charles Edwards excels as novelist Charles Condomine..."

Camden Review
"Charles Edwards charms as the unwitting bigamist Charles Condomine..."

Baz Bamigboye
"Ms Lansbury is tops, along with her co-stars Charles Edwards, Janie Dee, Jemima Rooper, Serena Evans, Simon Jones and Patsy Ferran. Their comic timing is delicious."

The Independent
"Charles Edwards beautifully captures the supercilious suavity of the novelist who is knocked off balance by the idea that it's his “subconscious” which has summoned Elvira."

Gareth Carr
"Edwards is a wonderfully bemused and down trodden Charles. A mix of English gent and part buffoon he warms the audience to his confusion and delirium with great ease."

Partially Obstructed View/@nick730
"There's certainly a cast I'd been looking forward to, and they lived up to this promise: Edwards is well-suited to the snappy exchanges of dialogue in Coward - and alternates amusingly between exasperation at finding himself with two wives - one of whom only he can see - and a rebellious nature that does nothing to make things easier for himself."

The Arts Desk
"Edwards is charming, with consummate timing. He'd have been a matinee idol if he'd lived in Coward's era."

theatreCat/Libby Purves
"... a last word about Charles Edwards:  always subtler, funnier, more human than you expect,  whether as Andrew Aguecheek, Edward VII [? possibly Edward VIII in Bertie and Elizabeth or Geroge VI in The King's Speech] or a Tory Chief Whip [Bernard Weatherill in This House].  His Condomine is all he should be: smooth but easily put-upon, posturing, petulant, worriedly uncertain of his own feelings (terrified he might really have called up Elvira out of his ‘subconscious’),  easily panicked. A man adrift, a worm fit for the turning."

The Stage
"Charles Edwards is simultaneously hilarious and desperate as he tries to keep his two wives happy."

Huffington Post
"Charles Edwards is excellent as the man stuck between his feuding wives - one dead, one alive. Those who caught him in Strange Interlude or This House, both at the National, or in the Pravda excerpt at the NT50 Anniversary Gala will remember his brilliant comic timing and all of that is on show here again."

Evening Standard
"The perennially underrated Edwards manages to make Condomine both suave and petulant, an urbane master of the cocktail cabinet who’s nevertheless forever on the brink of panic."

Londonist
"Charles Edwards is excellent as the complaining and henpecked, yet ultimately rather dopey husband."

The Jewish Chronicle
"Lansbury is great. But the success of this production is really down to some extremely savvy casting beneath the top billing. Charles Edwards is an actor with real depth and breadth but there are few sights more pleasurable than his quintessential Englishman. His Condomine is as sophisticated and dry as one of his favourite martinis."

Financial Times
"...the excellent Charles Edwards offers a brilliantly detailed comic turn as Charles [Condomine]"

The Spectator
"Edwards brings to his role all the verve with dialogue he showed in his career-making role as Benedict at the Globe’s 2011 Much Ado About Nothing. Then he played opposite Eve Best, and here he shows again that his stage presence doesn’t fade even beside the most powerful of actresses."

Telegraph
"Charles Edwards drips charm and style as Charles Condomine... [Edwards] communicates very well the sadness that is at the heart of his character. I [Tim Walker] have never seen the role played more effectively."

Guardian
"Charles Edwards as the suave but set-upon Charles [Condomine]... is effortlessly accomplished: urbane rather than arch, suggesting a lifetime at ease with his own good opinion of himself."

Purplebone
"Edwards gives Condomine a humanity that could have been missed among the comedy."

Loitering in the Theatre
"Edwards is superb, of course, as the man caught between the ghost of his first wife Elvira and the real person of his second, Ruth."

Not quite a yummy mummy/@KateSLP
"Charles Edwards, one of this country's finest and yet underrated actors, is deliciously smug and suave as Charles Condomine."

Interview
broadway.com

Pictures
Press night (18 March) Tatler|broadwayworld.com|wooller.com|Getty - curtain call|Getty-after party

Video
Press night (18 March) theatrepeople.com

Samuel West - TV, culture campaigns, Scene & Heard

Sam plays Eliot Vincent in The Crimson Field, a six part series for BBC One which premiered last Sunday (United Agents). Presumably he will appear between episodes 3 and 6; cast listings have yet to be released.
He plays Norman Skinner in D Day: Last Letters Home, a drama documentary written and directed by Marion Milne. Produced for ITV1, it will be broadcast later this year (United Agents and Marion's ShowFolio).

Screencaps of Sam and his parents Timothy West and Prunella Scales from episode 2 of Great Canal Journeys (they are thumbnails - click them for full size). The episode is available on 4oD for 7 more days.

----------

The NCA has launched a campaign called 50p for Culture. It suggests that local councils should budget at least 50p per person every week on arts, museums and heritage (The Stage). In mid March, Carl Woodward tweeted some pictures of Sam (chair of the NCA) speaking about the campaign at UK Theatre headquarters 1|2
Sam gave a speech about My Theatre Matters at Hull Truck Theatre last Wednesday. The theatre, @sarahbrigham and @derbytheatre posted some pictures of him on Twitter 1|2|3

On 28 March, Sam read a poem by Mark Hurst, "50 Shades of Grayling" at Pentonville Prison (All That's Left). His reading was part of a protest which opposed new rules preventing prisoners from being sent items such as books. Prisoners' access to books would be limited to gaol libraries or earning money to buy books (BBC, Islington Gazette, Islington Tribune, Evening Standard).

----------

Sam presented the DVD award (the Royal Opera House's production of Tosca) at the BBC Music Magazine Awards yesterday (@PrestoClassical). The magazine tweeted a picture of Sam at the ceremony.

"...you're not a police officer; you're the emu who killed my sister": some dialogue from a Scene & Heard performance in late March (Sam's Twitter, @exitthelemming). Scene & Heard produces plays written by children in Somers Town. A registered charity, its patrons include Sam, Hugh Bonneville, Anna Chancellor, Tom Goodman-Hill, Damian Lewis, Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen.

Guests at the Royal Court pub quiz fundraiser (18 March) included Benedict Cumberbatch and Romola Garai. Sam's team won the quiz (Tatler).

Charles Edwards - Silk and Trying Again

Charles plays Mr Lewis in "Bethany", an episode of the Afternoon Drama Silk: The Clerks' Room. It will be broadcast tomorrow on BBC Radio 4.

Trying Again premieres on Sky Living HD 24 April. These screencaps of Charles, Chris Addison and Jo Joyner are from the second trailer for the show. Click them for full size.