BAZ BAMIGBOYE: The venerable Vic fights for its independence By Baz Bamigboye for the Daily Mail Published: 00:18 BST, 10 July 2020 | Updated: 00:18 BST, 10 July 2020 The Old Vic, one of London’s landmark theatres, has rebuffed an attempt to take it over. The 202-year-old institution relies on deep-pocketed supporters and ticket sales … Read more
The Mousetrap — the show that roared — will be the first play to reopen in the West End. Which seems only fitting, given that Agatha Christie’s murder mystery, now in its 68th year, is the world’s longest running theatrical production. ‘We will open on October 23,’ producer Adam Spiegel told me in an exclusive interview, … Read more
Matthew Rhys suffers some pretty punishing pummelling as the title character in the whip-smart new take on the old Perry Mason television series which starred Raymond Burr as the dogged defence attorney. Rhys’s Perry definitely does not give as good as he gets — unlike his Russian spy Philip Jennings in The Americans, the seminal … Read more
Oscar-nominated star Florence Pugh ‘dropped everything’ to narrate a hard-hitting BBC documentary about medical staff at an Italian hospital battling to save lives in the early days of the pandemic. ‘I can barely cry,’ says Dr Francesca Mangiatordi, her haunted face staring into a laptop at the Cremona Hospital in Lombardy, Northern Italy. Documentarian Sasha … Read more
For Reggie Yates, the chance to direct his first feature was like a ‘super surreal dream come true’. And then, with just a few days of shooting remaining, the corona – virus struck. Now, the filmmaker and his creative collaborators are zooming in on ways to get the picture completed in the safest possible way. … Read more
Richard E. Grant is ready for his closeup…as a drag queen. The Oscar-nominated actor has undergone a head-to-toe transformation for the feature film version of stage hit musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie: hair concealed under what he described as a ‘Folies Bergere meets Mrs Thatcher 80s-style wig’, feet squeezed into a pair of Jimmy Choo’s. … Read more
The big screen version of Take That musical The Band is being actively developed during the lockdown, with ‘high calibre’ film stars being sought to appear in it. ‘We’re putting it together, and once all the serious things settle down, we can get on with making it,’ Danny Perkins, chief executive of the Elysian Film … Read more
Nigel Havers and Patricia Hodge are going to help Britain find its funny bone again by taking Noel Coward’s comic classic Private Lives on the road in October. David Pugh, who is producing with the newly formed Nigel Havers Theatre Company, said ticket prices would be kept low: under £10, with a top price under … Read more
Sheridan Smith, who is expecting the arrival of her first baby in five weeks, told me that the ‘little fella’ loves a song and dance Sheridan Smith, who is expecting the arrival of her first baby in five weeks, told me that the ‘little fella’ loves a song and dance. The BAFTA and Olivier award-winning … Read more
At school Joe Cole learned lessons he’s put to good use in a scorching new television action thriller. The 31-year-old is the star of Sky’s ten-part Gangs Of London, in which he plays Sean Wallace, a public school-educated, cold-eyed scion of a crime family who takes over the business when his father (Colm Meaney) is … Read more