ForgotPassword?
Sign Up
Search this Topic:
Forum Jump
Posts: 5376
Mar 31 11 4:14 PM
Official JMMB Twitter Master
A snorer in a theatre is annoying enough at the best of times, but James McAvoy had particular reason to take exception to the one dozing in his row at the first night of Sir Terence Rattigan’s play Cause Célèbre at the Old Vic theatre in London.
The offender happened to be a critic, and, what is more, he was supposed to be sitting in judgment on the play’s star, Anne-Marie Duff, who is the actor’s wife.
At the end of the performance, McAvoy, with members of his party, angrily told Paul Taylor of The Independent that he could not see how he could possibly review a production that he would have been able to have glimpsed, at best, only fleetingly.
“There was a right rumpus,” one theatre-goer tells Mandrake. “McAvoy was absolutely furious. I had noticed earlier that the gentleman sitting beside the snorer had been repeatedly elbowing him, but, sadly, to no avail.
"The noise was deafening. He was clearly in a very deep sleep indeed, and, to be fair to the play, he had nodded off before it had even begun.”
A spokesman for The Independent confirms that a review will not be appearing under the critic’s name. “I have been informed that Mr Taylor, who has a medical condition, is under the care of a doctor and is currently on medication, was ill during the performance,” he says.
“For this reason, he will not be writing a review of the production, and another critic will be reviewing it.”
Happily, the play kept the other first nighters – who included Sharon Stone, the star of Basic Instinct, my old friend Jemima Khan, and Sir Peter Hall, the director – on the edge of their seats.
Interact
Mar 31 11 4:23 PM
Posts: 741
Mar 31 11 4:37 PM
Lover of his light blue eyes and sweet personality
Helen M wrote: X-Men star James McAvoy is incensed as critic sleeps through his wife Anne-Marie Duff's performance
Apr 1 11 1:03 AM
Posts: 1379
Apr 1 11 7:30 AM
Apr 2 11 7:18 PM
Posts: 1390
Apr 2 11 8:25 PM
Posts: 475
Apr 2 11 11:24 PM
Official News Gatherer
Posts: 376
Apr 3 11 1:42 AM
Apr 3 11 3:28 PM
It is perhaps fitting that Duff should play Rattenbury with such empathy, because there are few actresses so acutely aware of the perils of self-exposure. Duff lives with her husband, the actor and film star James McAvoy, and their baby son in Crouch End, north London. Both actors are frequently interviewed, and when pressed, as they inevitably are, to provide some tastily confessional gobbet about each other, they steadfastly refuse to discuss their relationship. Duff has said: “It’s precious to me and what is precious to me is not up for grabs.”
Although the couple occasionally appears together at red-carpet events, there are no gushing magazine photo-spreads thereafter. Duff is fond of explaining her caginess in interviews by paraphrasing a Henry James quote to the effect that if you give too much of yourself away, people will swallow it up without even tasting it. It appears not only to be a recipe for sanity, but throws the spotlight back upon her work: Duff’s growing reputation as the finest British actress of her generation is bolstered with every performance.
Duff, now 40, occupies a unique position in the panoply of younger British actresses. Her closest forerunner is perhaps Dame Judi Dench: an actress who could comfortably veer between Shakespeare and sitcoms, working in television, stage and film to critical acclaim, but who has never appeared in the least carried away with the trappings of stardom. Dame Judi, who at 76 has now attained the undisputed status of a national treasure, also achieved that rare thing in showbusiness: a long and happy marriage to the actor, Michael Williams, before his death in 2001.
Perhaps, professionally, there is also a growing awareness among serious actors that the celebrity machine, once it goes into overdrive, can become the active enemy of artistic success. In America, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, both talented actors in their own right, have now become a media roadshow, privileged prisoners of their own fame: the interest in their private lives is so intense that the entire world acts as a kind of giant, distorting mirror. Their lives, bizarrely, now seem bigger than their roles: Jolie’s most recent films – from the action thriller Salt to the spy spoof The Tourist – have been disappointingly one-dimensional.
In contrast, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, the Oscar-winning Spanish stars who have recently married and had a son together, are intensely guarded about their personal life. Bardem in particular, as one of the most critically respected male film actors in the world, seems determined that his family will not be reduced to tabloid fodder: what is offered for consumption, after all, will end by being consumed.
Duff and McAvoy, quietly pursuing their deliberately ordinary family life in north London, are effectively the British anti-Brangelina, and – far from resenting them for their reticence – the country seems to like them all the better for it.
Apr 15 11 1:39 AM
It's the first night of Cause Célèbre at the Old Vic and sitting in front of me is James McAvoy, whose wife, Anne-Marie Duff, is starring. A nervous moment for a husband and thespian. The theatre is full of critics and actors. I sometimes think that the main reason for having so many drama schools is to provide an audience for serious plays. One seat away from McAvoy is Paul Taylor, theatre critic for the Independent. As the house lights faded for the second act, so did the rheumy-eyed reviewer. Gently, he fell into the arms of Morpheus, like a man sliding into warm quicksand. His head, with its distinctive Yuletide aureole of festive hair, sagged on the seat in front of him and he purred a sonorous accompaniment to the drama. It was what is known in the critics' circle as "doing a Sherry", after Sheridan Morley, most of whose long life in theatre seemed to have passed as a marvellous dream. When it was announced sadly that he'd died, someone - it might have been me - unkindly enquired how one could tell.
The snores grew in volume and Paul's neighbour shook him awake. He rose with that startled "Where the fuck am I?" expression to discover that it wasn't a nightmare, after all. When, at last, the cast came to the curtain call and McAvoy hallooed his missus, and the critics, as they do, picked up their Oddbins carrier bags and scuttled for the exit, McAvoy leaned across to share stern words.
I couldn't hear the exchange but their body language bellowed. Paul had the embarrassed, righteous fury of a man in ladies' underwear who's been caught with his trousers down, desperately trying to pull up his dignity. McAvoy was incandescent. The critic dropped his pen; the actor picked it up and, with a sarcastic, Shakespearean flourish, handed it back. This was a moment - the baton of power, the wand of career advancement or damnation, dropped by the old critic, handed back by the thrusting young actor. The Independent's man exited stage left, dejected, pursued by demons.
Apr 19 11 12:36 AM
Apr 22 11 1:27 AM
As noted in the Post: "Kevin Spacey, who runs the Old Vic, is in discussions with New York producers about a Broadway production. Rattigan, who died in 1977, is all but forgotten on Broadway today. He's long overdue for a comeback."
Anne-Marie Duff is an actress whose work spreads extensively over screen and stage. In 2007 Anne-Marie took the National Theatre by storm in the title role of MariAnne Elliott's revival of Saint Joan for which she won an Evening Standard Theatre Award, a South Bank Show Award, The Critics' Circle Award and was nominated for an Olivier Award. She wasalso nominated for an Ian Charleson Award for her role as ‘Cordelia' in Richard Eyre's KingLear (National Theatre) and an Olivier Award for Howard Davies' Collected Stories (WestEnd).
Other theatre credits include Days of Wine and Roses (Donmar) and War and Peace(National Theatre). Anne-Marie was BAFTA nominated in 2005 for Shameless (Channel 4) for her role as ‘Fiona' as well as in 2007 for her role as ‘Elizabeth I' in Elizabeth - The Virgin Queen.
Other television credits include Charles II, Dr Zhivago and Sinners. Film creditsinclude The Last Station with Helen Mirren, Nowhere Boy for which she won the BestSupporting Actress BIFA and also a BAFTA nomination, Margot, The Magdalene Sisters,French Film with Hugh Bonneville and Is Anybody There? with Michael Caine and DavidMorrissey.Thea Sharrock is currently directing Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit in the West End.
Apr 22 11 5:04 PM
Apr 24 11 2:45 AM
Apr 26 11 5:07 AM
The system hasn't always worked, however. When she was appearing in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan at the National in 2007, she was equally determined to banish reviews from her eyeline. "I thought, no, I love this, and it's about what we've been through as a company. Then I got in one night and put the telly on and the Late Review was on, and just at that moment Tim Lott and Jeanette Winterson were saying, 'Well, she's… all right.' My husband was filming away abroad – people are never there when you need them. And I called him and he said, 'OK, I'm going to have to tell you about a couple of nice reviews, just to cheer you up.'
Posts: 777
May 16 11 4:55 AM
Video Detective
Posts: 57
May 23 11 6:48 AM
Exclusive: BBC announces star-filled Terence Rattigan season Published Wednesday 18 May 2011 at 17:51 by Matthew HemleyRory Kinnear, Ruth Wilson and Rupert Penry-Jones are to appear in a special BBC Radio season celebrating the centenary of Terence Rattigan’s birth, which will also include a broadcast version of the Old Vic’s Cause Celebre starring Anne-Marie Duff, writes Matthew Hemley. The centenary will be marked across BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3 in June, and will feature new productions of The Browning Version, Flare Path and In Praise of Love, as well as the radio transfer of Cause Celebre. The season starts on June 5 with Flare Path on Radio 3, starring Kinnear, Wilson and Penry-Jones. It will go out in the Drama on 3 slot at 8pm and is being produced by Catherine Bailey. Jeremy Herrin will direct. This will be followed by Radio 4’s The Browning Version, broadcast on June 11 at 2.30pm. It will star Michael York, Joanne Whalley, Ioan Gruffudd and Ian Ogilvy. It is being produced by independent company Jarvis and Ayres, and directed by Martin Jarvis. The broadcast will be followed with The Rattigan Version, in which Jarvis reveals some behind the scenes background to the play. Jarvis will also appear in Radio 4’s production of In Praise of Love, which will be airedon Radio 4 on June 18. PierProductions is making this drama, which will also feature Sarah Badel and Kerry Shale. Cause Celebre completes the season on June 25. The stage version is being adapted for radio and brought to the BBC by Sparklab. It is produced by Polly Thomas and Melanie Harris. The cast has not yet been confirmed, but it is expected that the radio production - being recorded in a studio - will feature all the actors from the current Old Vic staging.
Published Wednesday 18 May 2011 at 17:51 by Matthew Hemley
Rory Kinnear, Ruth Wilson and Rupert Penry-Jones are to appear in a special BBC Radio season celebrating the centenary of Terence Rattigan’s birth, which will also include a broadcast version of the Old Vic’s Cause Celebre starring Anne-Marie Duff, writes Matthew Hemley.
The season starts on June 5 with Flare Path on Radio 3, starring Kinnear, Wilson and Penry-Jones. It will go out in the Drama on 3 slot at 8pm and is being produced by Catherine Bailey. Jeremy Herrin will direct.
This will be followed by Radio 4’s The Browning Version, broadcast on June 11 at 2.30pm. It will star Michael York, Joanne Whalley, Ioan Gruffudd and Ian Ogilvy. It is being produced by independent company Jarvis and Ayres, and directed by Martin Jarvis. The broadcast will be followed with The Rattigan Version, in which Jarvis reveals some behind the scenes background to the play.
Jarvis will also appear in Radio 4’s production of In Praise of Love, which will be airedon Radio 4 on June 18. PierProductions is making this drama, which will also feature Sarah Badel and Kerry Shale.
Cause Celebre completes the season on June 25. The stage version is being adapted for radio and brought to the BBC by Sparklab. It is produced by Polly Thomas and Melanie Harris.
The cast has not yet been confirmed, but it is expected that the radio production - being recorded in a studio - will feature all the actors from the current Old Vic staging.
Jun 21 11 8:21 AM
Jun 26 11 10:33 PM
Share This