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4May

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Interviews

Lockdown Interviews – Peter Egan

Peter Egan has been appearing on stage and screen for over 50 years. He is probably most well-known for his roles as Paul in the television sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles with Richard Briers and as Hugh “Shrimpie” MacClare, Marquess of Flintshire in Downton Abbey. Despite being known for his numerous roles in TV and film he is an award winning stage actor and has acted with both the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and The National. I started by asking what inspired him to become an actor. “I left school at 15 with no qualifications. My prospects were pretty dismal. I did a series of jobs all of which I hated. “When I was 16, I stumbled into acting by joining an amateur group in Ladbroke Grove, West London. “I became fascinated by the process of acting by watching this group ...

Back to the Future – Opera House

There have been many a screen to stage adaptation over the years, some working better than others, but tonight in Manchester a capacity audience witnessed the World Premiere of what I believe to be the best adaptation of them all. Manchester’s Opera House is once again the setting for yet another World Premiere cementing itself as the go to place for some of the best theatre producers to showcase their new work before it invariably heads to the West End and beyond. It follows in the footsteps of Ghost the Musical, Bat Out of Hell and &Juliet to name just 3. Back to the Future the Musical has long been rumoured to come to the stage and trust me when I tell you the wait has been worth every single second. Staying true to the original movie written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale vi...

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) – Royal Lyceum Theatre

For anyone who battled through Jane Austen’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ at school - or university - this play is for YOU. If you spent those hours-you’ll-never-get-back watching one of the film or TV adaptations, hurling abuse and shouting increasingly colourful language into the mouths of the characters, this script is for YOU. To witness this irritating novel set about with such irreverent relish was a filthy pleasure. Never mind what legions of readers and viewers have wanted to tell Lady Catherine De Bourgh to do, this play - via The Best Ever Mr Darcy - finally does it. How? First off, we’re introduced, not to Mr and Mrs Bennet, but to six of Longbourn’s servants clad in white utility smocks and DM’s (Dear Young Team, that’s a brand of footwear, not a form of soshal meeja); the sto...