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.

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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).

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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).

Samuel West - Carnival of the Animals, Garsington and Fleming

[updated 11 February]

Sam will narrate Carnival of the Animals at The Hexagon in Reading on Wednesday 19 February and the Southbank Centre on Thursday 20 February. He will perform with principal players of The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Katia & Marielle Labèque (via @Thehexagon).
He is the narrator - subject to availability - for Peace in Our Time? a series of concerts by the Garsington Opera Orchestra (6 July at the Wormsley Estate). Click here for booking details.

The Sky website for Fleming has been updated with video interviews. These screencaps of Sam, Dominic Cooper and Anna Chancellor are from "Designing Fleming's World" and "The Man Behind Bond" (click them for full size).

Screencaps from the new Fleming trailers

... of Dominic Cooper, Samuel West, Lara Pulver and Anna Chancellor. Click the thumbnails for full size.

Sky (click here for the trailer)


BBC America (click here for the trailer)

Hayley Atwell. Ruth Wilson. Television - The Prisoner. Dan Stevens. Audio - Wolf Hall. Audio - War Horse. BBC Radio.

• Hayley Atwell attended the Serpentine Gallery Summer party earlier this month. Pictures:
  Rex Features [link]
  WireImage [link]
  Getty/Zimbio [link]
  PR Photos/Starpulse [link]
  
  
• Ruth Wilson interview from Angel [link]
  
  
• The Prisoner begins on ABC1 tonight at 9.20pm [link]
  
  
• Titles featured in the Reading Agency Best Audiobooks of the Year 2010 List include The Honourable Schoolboy (starring Simon Russell Beale, Hugh Bonneville, Anthony Calf and Anna Chancellor), Doctor Who: Dead Air (narrator David Tennant), Wolf Hall (narrator Dan Stevens), and War Horse (narrator Dan Stevens) [link]
  
  
• BBC Radio
• Benedict Cumberbatch interviews about Sherlock on Loose Ends and the Daily Bacon (26 July) 1|2
• Simon Russell Beale participated in a Front Row discussion about Stephen Sondheim [link]

BBC Radio

• Toby Stephens and Patrick Malahide star in the Friday Play Let's Murder Vivaldi [link]
  
• The Complete Smiley continues with the Classic Serial The Honourable Schoolboy starring Simon Russell Beale (as George Smiley), Hugh Bonneville, Anthony Calf and Anna Chancellor [link]
• Bill Nighy stars in A Charles Paris Mystery: Cast in Order of Disappearance [link]
• Benedict Cumberbatch narrates Metamorphosis [link]
  
• Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Rebecca Front star in In the Chair [link]
  
• The Chekhov season includes:
• Ben Whishaw reading Twenty Minutes To Chekhov's Memory [link]
• Drama on 3 The Cherry Orchard, starring Sarah Miles, Nicholas le Prevost and Anne-Marie Duff [link]
• Bruce Alexander, Tessa Nicholson and Anna Maxwell Martin take part in the Sunday Feature Seven and a Half Years [link]
• Mackenzie Crook and Jason Isaacs are the readers for Words and Music "Sons of Russia" [link]
• Andrew Scott stars in A Life of Chekhov [link]
• Simon Russell Beale presents an episode of The Essay [link]

Dan Stevens - Radio - Guilty Until Proved Innocent. BBC Radio.

• The broadcast date for the Afternoon Play Guilty Until Proved Innocent has been changed to Monday 14 December [link]
• BBC Radio
• The Complete Smiley continues with the Classic Serial Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Simon Russell Beale (as George Smiley), Anna Chancellor and Alex Jennings [link]
• Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff star in Fact to Fiction "Jam Today?" [link]
• Hugh Bonneville narrates the Book at Bedtime Notwithstanding: Stories from an English Village [link]
  
• Rory Kinnear and Fenella Woolgar star in the Afternoon Play Flaw in the Motor, Dust in the Blood [link]

Rosamund Pike. Theatre - The Cocktail Party, Television - Freefall

From Baz Bamigboye's Daily Mail column:

"This little number adds up

Rosamund Pike was sitting at a computer screen, furiously typing away one second, picking up a phone the next and then studying an index of figures.

Watching her, I got the sense she actually knew what she was talking about. ‘Well, sort of — to a point,’ she laughed .

Sort of is about right. The actress is part of the cast for Dominic Savage’s film Freefall, which explores how the financial downward spiral started from selling dodgy sub-prime mortgages.

Rosamund spent several days at a City brokers and observed a shares plunge at close quarters.

High up in a mammoth office suite with wraparound views of London — St Paul’s, the
National Theatre, the Thames, St Pancras (I could almost see my street in North-West London!) — the director was discussing a scene with Aidan Gillen, the hot DJ rapper Riz Ahmed an Thompson (who, by the way, was very happy yesterday after Revolutionary Road, which he executive produced for BBC Films, won four Golden Globe nominations).

Next, Rosamund turns her attention to the stage.

She’s working on a rehearsed reading of T. S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, which will
open at the Donmar on December 17 as part of its T. S. Elliot festival.

The actress will join Anna Chancellor, Charlie Cox, Rosalie Craig, Nicky Henson, Alex Jennings, Paul Phys and Una Stubbs. Jamie Lloyd is directing them.

Then she begins rehearsing Madame de Sade, the third Donmar West End production, which starts at Wyndham’s Theatre from March 13.

She will join Judi Dench, Frances Barber, Deborah Findlay, Jenny Galloway and Fiona
Button, with Michael Grandage directing."