Samuel West - Radio - A Passage to India. BBC Radio.

• Sam narrates A Passage to India by E.M. Forster [link]
• Gemma Arterton will be on Loose Ends promoting The Little Dog Laughed, which also stars Rupert Friend and Tamsin Greig [link]
• Colin Firth will be on Front Row next Tuesday [link]

Radio - Goldfinger. Instyle - The Brit Pack, Best of British party. South Bank Show Awards.

• As well as the previously announced Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike and Ian McKellen, the cast of Goldfinger includes Tom Hollander, Lisa Dillon and Tim Pigott-Smith. It will be broadcast 3 April. (via Commander Bond) [link]
• Andrea Riseborough and Ruth Wilson are in the portfolio "The Brit Pack" from the March 2010 issue of Instyle (UK). A behind the scenes video from the shoot is here. Instyle hosted a Best of British party celebrating the BAFTAs. Guests included Bonnie Wright, Claire Foy, Jamie Campbell Bower, Olivia Grant and Rosamund Pike.
• Ruth Wilson was at the Waiting for Godot press night after party 1|2|3|4
• Guests at the South Bank Show Awards include Damian Lewis, Rebecca Hall, Ruth Wilson, David Morrissey and Peter Hall 1|2

Samuel West. Television - Pinter celebration. Judgement Day. portrait.

• A clip from Harold Pinter: A Celebration (via FilmographySam) [link]
  
  
• Sam will attend Tony Blair's Judgement Day tomorrow. He will be reading the names of Iraqis killed in the war. A tweet:
  

  "Tomorrow, there's a protest outside the Iraq War inquiry to mark the day of Tony Blair's testimony. Please join us http://www.stopwar.org.uk"

• Portrait by photographer Giles Park [link]

Theatre - Enron

[updated 31 January]



Reviews

Telegraph
"...There is superb clarity in Prebble's story-telling as well as high drama, and terrific bravura about Rupert Goold's often dazzling production that brings the mysterious world of high finance to vivid, comprehensible life...
The production is is also blessed with some terrific performances. Samuel West grippingly charts the transformation of Enron's chief executive Jeffrey Skilling from gauche nerd to ruthless financial master of the universe..."

The Times
"...It's now as much a phenomenon as a play... Good for Lucy Prebble. Good for her Enron.
...a potentially dry subject is actually packed with juice is also due to the actors: Tim Pigott-Smith's Kenneth Lay, Enron's founder and a man whose folksy bonhomie conceals ruthlessness; Tom Goodman-Hill as the obsequious nerd who devises and then disowns the fiscal trickery; and, above all, Samuel West as the CEO..."

Bloomberg
"...Lucy Prebble's razor-sharp play...
Samuel West is superb as the aggressive and devious character depicting Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling, and his physical and mental disintegration now strikes an even deeper note of horror..."

Londonist
"...Samuel West is wonderful as Skilling, managing to bring a touch of humanity to a brainy, unrepentantly greedy bastard. Tim Pigott-Smith is utterly convincing as Enron chairman Ken Lay, creepily concealing his greed behind touchy-feely company jargon and religion. And Amanda Drew is great as what seems to be the one woman in the room, losing out to the macho of markets..."

whatsonstage.com
"...The great Samuel West leads the same cast as that which first appeared at the Chichester Minerva Theatre in July last year, then at the Royal Court in the autumn, and the company crackle with energy and wit now just as they did in each of the previous incarnations of the show..."

Guardian
"...company president Jeffrey Skilling (played by Sam West, who is remarkable in what is a remarkable cast)... The audience doesn't have to do the maths because Prebble has done it for us, bringing clarity to a complex story, and cleverly blurring the line between fact and fiction to considerable dramatic effect..."
[another review] "...Enron has arrived in the West End. Lucy Prebble's play is one of the most grown-up political dramas of the last decade. The raptor puppets, the fluorescent dazzle, the great Mammon danse macabre of Rupert Goold's production put flesh on the ideas, make the virtual look real, give life to the illusions of finance. Last year saw a string of unmissable plays. This is one of them."

Music OMH
"...West's superb performance gives the production its pulse. In his hands Skilling is an enigmatic and intriguing figure, highly intelligent, ruthless and manipulative when needs be, and utterly convinced of his own brilliance, but also undoubtedly passionate about what he does... Physically, West transforms himself repeatedly as the play progresses. From a portly outsider with unfortunate hair at the start he morphs into the epitome of the slick executive and then, as the full reality of the situation comes to light, he subtly conveys Skilling’s unravelling... Goodman-Hill is also impressive as the smart but socially awkward and rather repellent Fastow..."

The Sunday Times
"...Sam West is superb in the role [Jeffrey Skilling]. Initially, he is a boffin with a weird, slicked-down hairstyle, thick specs and trousers too short... He possesses a quite breathtaking arrogance. Gradually, his image gets slicker, his suits sharper; he even has his eyes lasered...
Prebble’s play is a magnificently ambitious and original piece"

The Financial Times
"...The acting was compelling and believable, especially from Sam West, who as Jeff Skilling managed to make a seamless transition from maths nerd to master of the universe..."

Articles

Sky News - Lucy Prebble and Samuel West are interviewed [link]
Telegraph - Rupert Goold interview [link]
ITN - Tom Goodman-Hill is interviewed [link]
Critics' Circle Theatre Awards - Rupert Goold won best director [link]
Official London Theatre Guide [link]
CNBC - producer Matthew Byam Shaw interview (via Enron- West End Run) [link]
The Times - Lucy Prebble interview [link]

Pictures

Press night:
wooller.com - after party (guests included Imelda Staunton, Lindsay Duncan, John Simm, Guy Henry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dominic West, Rebecca Hall, Laura Wade, Maxine Peake and Andrew Scott) and curtain call [link]
Getty - after party [link]

Production:
Photo by Elliott Franks [link]
Photos by Helen Maybanks 1|2
Corbis (photo: Robbie Jack) [link]

Video

Press night - video by elizabethtoni (via FilmographySam) [link]

Theatre - Enron

• There was a photocall for Enron yesterday:
  Metro 1|2|3|4|5
  Getty [link]
  wooller.com [link]
  AP 1|2
  Rex Features [link]
• In addition to the Guardian, the play has been featured in the Times, the Financial Times, the Telegraph and the Sunday Times [link]
  

Theatre - National Theatre 2010. Theatre - Enron. Dan Stevens - Film - Hilde.

• The National Theatre 2010 season includes (via The Telegraph):
• Toby Stephens stars in Danton's Death
• Rory Kinnear and Clare Higgins star in Hamlet, opening in September. A UK and international tour will follow in early 2011.
• Simon Russell Beale and Mark Addy star in London Assurance
• Rebecca Hall stars in Twelfth Night directed by Peter Hall
• Enron
• An interview with Lucy Prebble from the Evening Standard is here; and she will be in an upcoming issue of Vogue.
• Lyn Gardner's theatre tips from the Guardian [link]
• Hilde will be screened at the Glasgow Film Festival (via Eye for Film) [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]

Samuel West - Television - Crusades. Lucy Prebble - Arts Council conference. Dan Stevens - Audio - The Prince of Mist.

[updated 24 April 2010 - links for The Prince of Mist]

• Crusades is currently in post-production. Tweets from Sam:
  
  

  "What a strange morning: lying on the floor of a dubbing studio pretending to have dead starlings falling on my head."
  
  "Starlings were for Crusades, a TV movie with James Frain, Clemency Burton-Hill, Tom Basden and the soon-to-be-enormous Christian Cooke. Hmm."

  
  
• Lucy will participate in the Arts Council England State of the Arts conference [link]
  
  
• Dan narrates an unabridged version of The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It will be released in May. cd|download
  

Entertainment news

• Billie Piper, Simon Russell Beale and Colin Firth & Tom Ford interviews billie|simon|colin & tom
  
• Golden Globes
• Winners [link]
• Martin Scorsese's acceptance speech [link]
  
• Carey Mulligan received the best actress award at the National Board of Review gala (via Just Jared); she has been included in Life magazine's Oscar hopefuls portraits; and she has been nominated for the Orange Rising Star Bafta Award.
• The Pride, starring Hugh Dancy, Ben Whishaw, Andrea Riseborough and Adam James is featured in Broadway Beat [link]
• Article about Mahler by Armando Iannucci (via AIannucci) [link]
  
• Red Riding will have a limited release in New York [link]
• Article about The King's Speech [link]

Samuel West - Film - Stiff Upper Lips

IMDB|PBS|Wikipedia

Clip
by FilmographySam


Screencaps
click thumbnails for full size





Interview
Daily Mirror "Sam's not such a numbskull", 12 June 1998

Lucy Prebble - Theatre - Enron

Lucy is a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She has been nominated for Enron. [link]

Television - Pinter celebration

Harold Pinter: A Celebration has been recorded, and will be broadcast on BBC4 this Sunday. The cast includes Colin Firth, Michael Sheen, Samuel West, Janie Dee, David Bradley, Douglas Hodge, Stephen Rea and Gina McKee. [link]

Ruth Wilson, David Tennant. Rosamund Pike - Theatre - Chekhov celebration.

[updated 20 January]

• Recent lovely pictures of Ruth and David by Ellis Parrinder ruth|david
  Sharonalee has more pictures of Ruth from that photoshoot [link]
• Rosamund will read the short stories "In the Cart" and "Darling" at the Hampstead Theatre Chekhov celebration [link]

Theatre - Enron. Dan Stevens - Radio - The Coral Thief.

• The Corner Shop PR has a better quality scan of the Vanity Fair article about Enron [link]
  
  
• Excerpt from a blog post by BBC Radio producer Elizabeth Allard about The Coral Thief:
  

  "...Casting is crucial - and this time, unlike some others, the narrator's voice was clear to me from the start. I'd worked with Dan Stevens earlier in the year, reading William Fiennes' The Music Room and I knew he could carry off both the drama and the science entwined in the book. I felt he would bring our narrator, Daniel Connor, a young ambitious and engaging natural scientist, to life brilliantly. I knew that he could also lift Lucienne Bernard off the page and make this beautiful cross dressing thief sound seductive and charismatic, and all with a French accent.
  Dan was enticed by the book and subsequently the scripts. Well prepared, once in studio he got stuck into telling the story and recreating the characters. He quickly nailed our English narrator, and Parisian temptress, as well as a sinister French detective, a Scottish professor and a number of brigands and thieves..."

Samuel West - Narration - Lines of Flight. Rosamund Pike - Theatre - Hedda Gabler. Carey Mulligan. Radio - Goldfinger.

• Screening times for Lines of Flight at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (via salbrown) [link]
  
• Hedda Gabler will tour to Brighton, Richmond, Nottingham and Oxford, then transfer to the West End [link]
• Carey Mulligan is featured in Baz Bamigboye's Daily Mail column [link]
  
• From the Times:
  

  "...In May, Radio 4 will give us a gay Goldfinger, with Sir Ian McKellen in the title role of Ian Fleming’s spy classic, Toby Stephens as 007 and Rosamund Pike, already a Bond girl in the cinema, as Pussy Galore..."

Entertainment news

• Mark Strong, Gemma Arterton, Sophie Okonedo, Michael Adams and Matthew Weiner interviews mark|gemma|sophie|michael|matthew
• A nice article about Party Animals [link]
• Some stills from Jackboots on Whitehall (via firstshowing) [link]
• DGA Award nominations in television [link]
  
• The Pride photocall [link]
• The Times has included the John Simm and Rory Kinnear Hamlets, Posh and Three Sisters as theatre highlights for this year [link]
• Scans of Matthew Goode, Tom Sturridge and Eddie Redmayne from Glamour [link]
  
• Ruth Wilson is eighth on Broadcast's list of top TV entertainers for 2010 [link]
• Lucy Prebble has chosen the playwright DC Moore as one to watch for 2010 [link]

Dan Stevens - Radio - The Coral Thief. BBC Radio.

• Dan Stevens narrates the Book at Bedtime The Coral Thief [link]
  
• Laura Wade was on Night Waves [link]
• Hugh Bonneville and Lizzy Watts star in Towards Zero [link]
• Simon Russell Beale and Adjoa Andoh are the readers for Words and Music "Atonement" [link]
• Rory Kinnear stars in Slipstream [link]

Samuel West - Narration - Lines of Flight

[updated 12 January]


(click pictures for full size)
Photos: Sal Brown. Source: Lines of Flight

Lines of Flight will be screened at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (12-14 March) and the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (22-29 January).

Thanks to Sal Brown for the update, and permission to use the pictures above.

Tags: Lines of Flight, Sal Brown, Samuel West, Sam West, Andy Cave, Richard Heap, film, short film, Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival

Dan Stevens - Film - The Winter Queen. Theatre - Enron.

• The Winter Queen will begin filming in April (via millaj.com) [link]
  
• Enron
  
• A mention in a whatsonstage.com article about theatre highlights this year:
  

  "...The West End roster is further strengthened by the Royal Court transfers of two of last year's biggest premieres: Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem starring Mark Rylance and Rupert Goold's Headlong production of Lucy Prebble's Enron, starring Samuel West..."

• Sam West interview from the Times [link]
• Article by Lucy Prebble from the Financial Times [link]
  
• Article from the Times [link]
• Tom Goodman-Hill has posted the article about the play from the February 2010 issue of Vanity Fair. Tweets about the photoshoot are in this post. [link]

Samuel West - Television - Hornblower "The Frogs and the Lobsters"/"The Wrong War"

IMDB|Wikipedia
Screencaps
click thumbnails for full size






Making of:


Article

"Postcards from Portugal", Tatler September 1998

Lucy Prebble, Carey Mulligan.

Lucy and Carey have been nominated for the The Times/The South Bank Show Breakthrough Award. Voting is open to the public and closes 13 January. [link]

Samuel West. Theatre. Radio - Here.

• Excerpt from an article about British theatre during the recession:
  

  "'...We are very good at theatre in this country and we have been since 1620 and it's important to pat ourselves on the back when we do things well," he [Sam] says.
  But that does not wholly explain why theatre is flourishing now, during a slump. Samuel West thinks for many, a theatre ticket has become an affordable luxury.
  "To look at it in a narrow fiscal sense, anybody who wasn't making their money through their investments, is slightly better off because of falling mortgage rates than they were, and they might have a bit more money to spend, and they might be spending it on going to the theatre...'"



• Here will be repeated on BBC7 17 January [link]

Film. Theatre. Television. Radio.

Additional labels for the previous post are below.

Film. Theatre. Television. Radio.

Upcoming productions mentioned by the Times and the Independent:

• The Times
  Film. A Single Man, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, Never Let Me Go, Brothers, Brighton Rock, Dagenham Girls.
  Theatre. The Little Dog Laughed, The Real Thing, Measure for Measure, Posh, Alice, Hamlet (starring John Simm, Sheffield Crucible), Hamlet (starring Rory Kinnear, the National).
• The Independent
  Film. Tamara Drewe, Shutter Island, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.
  Theatre. Hamlet (starring John Simm, Sheffield Crucible), Hamlet (starring Rory Kinnear, the National).
  Television. Downton Abbey, Sherlock Holmes.
  Radio. Chekhov 150th anniversary.

Theatre - Enron. Television - The Prisoner.

• Enron
• Article about Lucy Prebble from the Guardian [link]
• The production is mentioned in articles from the Times and the Independent
• A mention of The Prisoner from the Independent [link]