Latest news with #ChichesterFestival
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Clive Revill obituary
No one who saw Clive Revill, who has died aged 94, on stage or screen thought he was anything less than a superb actor. However, for one who enjoyed such a distinguished career, he was surprisingly little known to the general public. It was as though he operated under the radar. He was twice nominated for a Tony award on Broadway, worked three times in startlingly different productions with the great stage director Peter Brook, and twice with the film director Billy Wilder. But his career did not gather momentum once he moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, and his last major Broadway appearance, as a 'weirdly colourful' (according to one critic) nemesis to Donald Sutherland's professor in an Edward Albee adaptation of Nabokov's Lolita in 1980, was commercially disastrous. The pilot show he went to make in Hollywood did not generate the hoped-for television series, and he thereafter made a string of guest appearances in episodes of Columbo (starring Peter Falk), Hart to Hart (with Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers), Murder She Wrote (with Angela Lansbury) and Star Trek: The Next Generation. After leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, at the Chichester Festival theatre and on Broadway, he lent his great power as a leading character actor to such original British television writing as Nigel Kneale's Bam! Pow! Zap! (1969), a bleak satire on cinematic violence, Alun Owen's The Piano Player (1972) and David Hare's first film as both writer and director, Licking Hitler (1978), about the black propaganda unit broadcasting to Germany during the second world war. This period marked his career pinnacle. Revill was stocky and pugnacious, with a Mr Punch-style nose, piercing blue eyes and red hair, physical attributes that were disguised on stage as he usually played much older than his years. He was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Eleanor (nee Neel) and Malet Revill, and was educated at Rongotai College and Victoria University in Wellington. He trained as an accountant but took a career swerve into theatre when he played Sebastian in a 1950 production of Twelfth Night in Auckland. He came to Britain, training at the Old Vic school before, remarkably, making a Broadway debut as Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers in 1952. He then returned to Britain and played for two years at the Ipswich Rep and made a London debut in 1955 at the Arts Theatre in Peter Hall's production of a Vivian Ellis children's musical, Listen to the Wind. He played a wicked butler, spiriting away three children from their East Anglian nurse to the gypsies; Ronnie Barker was the Gypsy Man. His first television role, a leading one, was in a family business saga, The Makepeace Story (1955), directed by Tony Richardson for the BBC (John Osborne and Maggie Smith, also making TV debuts, had walk-on parts). The big break came with an invitation to play two seasons, from 1956 to 1958, at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, where his roles included the First Player to Alan Badel's Hamlet, Barnardine (the prisoner who refuses to wake up for his own execution) in Measure for Measure, Cloten in Cymbeline, and Trinculo in Brook's production of The Tempest with John Gielgud as Prospero; this spectacularly designed show also played a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In the following year, Brook cast him as third lead in a delightful musical, Irma La Douce (1958), starring Elizabeth Seal and Keith Michell, with a score by the French composer Marguerite Monnot and book and lyrics by the British trio of David Heneker, Monty Norman and Julian More. Revill was a jack-in-the-box barman and played the role for two years at the Lyric before going to New York in 1960 and winning a Tony nomination for his performance. His second Tony nomination came three seasons later when he played Fagin in Lionel Bart's hit musical Oliver! (Ron Moody had introduced the role in London). In 1964, he joined the RSC at the Aldwych theatre to play Jean Paul-Marat in Brook's sensational production of Marat/Sade (with Patrick Magee, Glenda Jackson and Ian Richardson) and, his greatest performance, Barabas in Clifford Williams's white-walled Mediterranean revival of Marlowe's The Jew of Malta ('As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, and kill sick people groaning under walls. Sometimes I go about and poison wells …'). He never returned to Stratford, though. Over the next 10 years, Revill made a string of interesting, enjoyable movies: supporting Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward in Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing (1965); Warren Beatty and Susannah York in Kaleidoscope (1966); as a Scots orderly and a fake sheikh in Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise (1966), with Monica Vitti and Dirk Bogarde; and as one of Oliver Reed's 'moral' gang of killers, infiltrated by a journalist (Diana Rigg), in Basil Dearden's The Assassination Bureau (1969). Back on stage in Chichester in 1968, he played Caliban in The Tempest, the general in Peter Ustinov's The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, and Mr Antrobus in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. For Wilder, he supported Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), now a cult classic, and won a Golden Globe nomination as a flustered hotel manager, Carlo Carlucci, in Avanti! (1972), a black comedy of hidden corpses and seduction in the sunshine, starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. He returned to the RSC, and Broadway, in 1975 when he took over as Moriarty in William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes starring John Wood, and he succeeded George Rose on a US national tour of the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He voiced the Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, and his later film work consisted mainly of voiceovers in animated series, cartoons and video games. His great passion was golf, and he also held a pilot's licence. Two marriages ended in divorce. Revill is survived by a daughter, Kate, from his second marriage, in 1978, to Suzi Schor. Clive Selsby Revill, actor, born 18 April 1930; died 11 March 2025
The Guardian
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Chichester Festival theatre announces first Hamlet, starring Giles Terera
Since opening in 1962 under its first artistic director, Laurence Olivier, Chichester Festival theatre has hosted some of the world's greatest Shakespearean actors. But surprisingly it has never produced its own version of Hamlet. 'It's unbelievable, isn't it?' says Justin Audibert, who in 2023 succeeded Daniel Evans as the theatre's artistic director. 'We've done three Antony and Cleopatras!' Audibert is now preparing to direct Hamlet himself, with the tragic prince played by Giles Terera, who won an Olivier award when he starred as Aaron Burr in the London premiere of Hamilton. The play will open in September in Chichester's smaller Minerva theatre. 'We are imagining that Old Hamlet [the prince's father] has let the kingdom decline,' says Audibert, whose production will explore the 'leadership vacuum' that comes from an older generation 'clinging on to power for a really long time'. Hamlet's father 'has definitely got some Biden vibes' says Audibert, and the director has also been reflecting on the succession of Syria's Bashar al-Assad from his father, Hafez. Terera, who starred as Othello at the National Theatre in 2022, will play a Hamlet who is similar in age to his stepfather, Claudius. The Minerva, which seats around 300 people, could bring you closer to Hamlet's inner turmoil, Audibert suggests, recalling his experience of watching Rupert Goold's 2007 Macbeth with Patrick Stewart. 'I'm fascinated by how fast Shakespeare's characters think,' he says. One question he asks when staging the plays is: 'How do you propel it forward – all the time?' Audibert arrived at Chichester after running London's Unicorn theatre for children, so he has swapped one of the country's youngest audiences for what is probably one of the oldest. A huge number of visitors to the Unicorn are naturally completely new to the venue, while Chichester is used to welcoming back theatregoers who have built 'a real commitment and passion for the institution'. He relishes how both groups 'tell you exactly what they think', and adds, 'Chichester is a very civic-minded place. The theatre was founded through a movement within the community who fundraised for it.' Audibert's first season at Chichester included a wildly successful version of Oliver! that has transferred to the West End. His second season, announced on Thursday, will include another big musical, Top Hat, which will be directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. A musical adaptation of Rachel Joyce's novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, with music and lyrics by singer-songwriter Passenger, will star Mark Addy and Jenna Russell. Game of Thrones's Natalie Dormer will play Anna Karenina; Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's new play Choir will 'celebrate music and togetherness'; and a new version of Gogol's The Government Inspector (with 'big belly laughs') will star Tom Rosenthal, directed by Gregory Doran. There are also adaptations of William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Matt Haig's A Boy Called Christmas, the latter performed by the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre to mark its 40th anniversary. 'We'll have 70 children on stage and 30 children backstage running that show,' Audibert says. A new play by Jamie Bogyo called Safe Space will be directed in the Minerva by Roy Alexander Weise. The drama is billed as a bracing account of campus politics at a US university whose students are 'confronting the injustices of the past … starting with the fact that the college is named after a notorious defender of slavery'. Audibert says: 'On the one hand it's about these big culture-wars ideas like legacy, restitution and justice … and on another level, it's about loads of 20-year-olds who as well as dealing with important social political issues are also working out who they are, what they stand for and who they want to sleep with.' As previously announced, Beverley Knight will play rock'n'roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the Minerva during the summer. At Christmas, a musical version of The Three Little Pigs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe will be co-produced with the Unicorn. Audibert has stressed the affordability of the season, with tickets available from £10 for every show. Theatregoers aged 16 to 30 can buy £5 tickets if they sign up to the free Prologue scheme.
The Guardian
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We were booed. I felt proud': Daniel Evans on his rollercoaster journey to RSC supremo
Daniel Evans, whose sparkling performances in Stephen Sondheim musicals have earned him two Olivier awards and a Tony nomination, has been meaning to get back on stage for some time. Chalk up the delay to little things such as running Sheffield Theatres for seven years, followed by another seven at the Chichester Festival theatre before being appointed co-artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company with Tamara Harvey in 2023. Aside from a spot of emergency understudying on the RSC's queer musical western Cowbois, it has been 14 years since Evans acted on stage. Even during his award-laden early years, he would sometimes get home after a performance and think: 'Is this it?' The 51-year-old sitting in the corner of a London rehearsal room today is singing a different tune. 'I had this need to act again,' Evans says. 'And I can't quite explain it.' He looks lean and taut, his head as smooth and shiny as a Belisha beacon. 'I started losing my hair in my early 20s. I've been shaving it since I was 25.' Wait: he definitely had a healthy mop when he played Peter Pan at the National in 1997 opposite Ian McKellen as Captain Hook. 'A wig,' he confides gently, as though breaking bad news to a delicate child. That star-making turn came after the RSC had poached him during his final year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, whisking him off to New York for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now he is not only co-running the company but returning to acting as the king who insists on ruling alongside his male lover in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II. There are some obvious differences between the RSC of his youth and now. Earlier this month, for instance, he was producing content for TikTok, to support £10 RSC tickets for 14-to-25-year-olds. 'Day one of rehearsals we were filming the trailer,' he says. 'Lots of snogging in the crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields.' Forget TikTok: the last time Edward II was performed at the RSC, Ceefax was still around. (That was 35 years ago, with Simon Russell Beale.) Evans thinks its relative scarcity is attributable partly to what is known as 'Marlowe's mighty line'. The actor explains: 'It has this inexorable rhythm. Marlowe's thoughts are these trains that just keep going. To act that, you've got to be in a different state.' Agitated? 'Athletic.' The question with any revival is always: why now? 'The play feels contemporary,' he reflects. 'However liberal our society may seem, you can encounter homophobia weekly, even daily. We've never had an out prime minister or an out Best Actor Oscar winner.' What about at close quarters? 'It can be in a look, or in how one experiences life backstage. You still hear directors say about an actor, 'Oh no, they're too camp for that part.'' It's one thing for Evans and Harvey to include Edward II as part of their flagship season. But for the RSC's co-artistic director to also take the lead role – and for that to mark Evans's return to the stage after an extended hiatus – places a substantial symbolic weight on the role itself. In 2013, Evans noted that 'the most satisfying time I've had in the theatre is playing a gay part in a brilliant play'. He was referring to Christopher Shinn's Where Do We Live, back in 2002. What is the extra dimension for him in gay roles? 'It goes to the nature of acting itself. Very few people can totally efface themselves when they're acting, so for me it's a form of self-revelation. Choosing this part is about being all of me.' He looks faintly embarrassed. 'Sorry if that sounds strange!' As well as being gay, he and Edward are both leaders. 'I think good leadership is about authenticity.' Another caveat: 'I know that's become a silly buzzword. But you have to ultimately be yourself. I wanted to play a role that allows me to reveal myself. Which sounds indulgent.' Why the apologetic tone? 'I have those doubts because I'm from the valleys in Wales and these are very different values from my upbringing. But those doubts are good because then you're reminding yourself, 'This isn't an ego trip. This is a play with something to say.'' Evans' sensitivity and his childhood love of theatre made him a doubly attractive target for bullies at school. 'People were calling me 'gay' before I knew I was. They spotted something in me that I didn't even see. My response was to run away from it. Then you can run no longer, so you have to face it.' He has been out for his professional life but the prospect of turning 50 nudged him toward Edward II. 'It's like, 'You've got to own this.'' Own it he will. He is going to be standing on stage, naked in some scenes, kissing another man – 'Two men!' he points out – in an avowedly queer play produced by an internationally renowned theatre company of which he is now joint artistic director. How much of that dream scenario represents a 'Screw you' to the bullies? 'Oh my God,' he says, banging a clenched fist against his chest. 'As you said that, I felt like I was being hit by something. I think you're right. I think that's what it is. That wasn't why we programmed the play but it links back to authenticity. It's saying, 'This is a part of who I am.'' There are other parallels. 'Edward is a king who couldn't be himself because of the bullying he experienced. Ironically, he gets in touch with his fury too late. He acts, yet not in a diplomatic way that can be construed as being good for the country. And he has to give up his crown.' Evans' crown is safe for now. He and Harvey, who signed a five-year contract, are about to announce their new season. Before then, Evans will be acting again in a revival that, like his RSC gig, returns him to his theatrical roots. A new 25th anniversary production of Sarah Kane's harrowing 4:48 Psychosis, co-produced with the Royal Court, will reunite him with the other original cast members and their director James Macdonald. The Stratford chunk of the run will include a final performance beginning at 4:48am, after which the cast will have breakfast with the audience. The mood during the original rehearsals of 4:48 Psychosis, which took place in the shadow of Kane's 1999 suicide, was febrile. 'There were days when we had to be sent home,' recalls Evans. 'Either we were laughing too much, which is a coping mechanism, or we were too emotionally tangled.' Evans has long championed Kane's work; his Sheffield tenure even began in confrontational mode with a complete season of her writing. He also got to act alongside her when she replaced an injured cast member in the final three performances of her brutal 1998 play Cleansed (the one with the notorious stage direction: 'The rats carry Carl's feet away'). 'Sarah was on stage next to me. We were literally naked. It was disarming because she wasn't acting: she was being. Therefore, I had to change what I was doing to be more real. She had this rawness. It was as if her skin was translucent.' With most of the run of 4:48 Psychosis sold out, including that dawn performance, the reception will be closer to reverence now, certainly compared with the outraged reviews at the time, which decried Kane's plays as filth. 'We were booed during the curtain call at Cleansed,' says Evans. 'I felt quite proud.' Booing might be perversely gratifying but theatre has become a more hazardous and volatile place since the outbreak of the latest culture wars. Nataki Garrett, artistic director at the Oregon Shakespeare festival, received death threats; hostility greeted the Globe's Shakespeare and Race festival; while the same theatre faced a backlash over its non-binary characterisation of Joan of Arc in I, Joan. Evans is committed to making the RSC a home for bold reimaginings, whether it's Emily Burns's Love's Labour's Lost, which relocated the hi-jinks to a tech bro's island, or Radiohead fusing with Shakespeare in the forthcoming Hamlet Hail to the Thief. But what is his relationship to controversy? 'In some ways, there is no avoiding it,' he says. 'People might disagree with one's vision, I guess. Every now and then, controversy may not be a bad thing as it means people are being asked to think differently. That said, shock can't be the only part. I do want to fuck with Shakespeare – but only to illuminate.' Edward II is at the Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 21 February to 5 April. 4:48 Psychosis is at the Royal Court, London, 12 June to 5 July and at the Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, 10 to 27 July.
