Latest news with #MaggieSmith
CTV News
07-07-2025
- General
- CTV News
‘Overcame all my fears': Halifax's Camp Courage returns for another successful year
A group of young women in Nova Scotia tried out careers as first responders in Halifax over the weekend. Many students in the Maritimes are beginning their break from school with summer camp, and one recent camp in Halifax required its participants to have a lot of courage. Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Captain Andrea Speranza founded Camp Courage in 2006 with the goal of introducing teenage girls to careers as first responders. Speranza says she felt that there was low representation of women in more non-traditional professions. 'And I felt that if they actually got to physically do the tasks that they would love it as much as I do, and it's true because we have a 36 per cent success rate of graduates moving on,' she says. Those who participated in this year's camp had a week full of police, paramedic and Coast Guard training before fire training days on Friday and Saturday. Camp Courage A teenage girl takes part in Camp Courage in Halifax. (Carl Pomeroy/CTV Atlantic) 'There's going to do zipline, repel, get a ride in a truck,' Speranza said. 'They are going to rescue little (pretend) babies in a smokehouse, they are going to put hazardous materials suits on, they are going to learn how to use a hydrant and they are going to cut a roof off a car and make it into a convertible.' Maggie Smith was among those who took part. 'There's so much, there's EHS, there's fire, there's police, so there's all these options, so Camp Courage is great because it gave me everything that I could possibly want to look into,' she said. 'I was just really interested in first responding at first and then the camp, seeing all the options, like Coast Guard, fire lined up, it was so exciting.' Coast Guard day especially stood out to participant Chidere Achunike. 'The second day was the Coast Guard day. It was raining so we all had to wear our ponchos, we got to do so many things that day and I actually got to see an actual emergency because we had to pull someone out from the water, save a person,' she said. 'Everyone was so supportive, so kind, it was like I overcame all my fears. We did a lot of drills and it was just so inspiring to see everyone, how they were just right there for you,' added fellow student Macaileigh Fohshow. Young women or gender diverse youth aged 15 to 19 are encouraged to apply to upcoming events directly on the Camp Courage website. 'Apply for this lifechanging experience and I assure you, you will not be disappointed,' said Speranza. Twenty five youth graduated from this year's event. With files from CTV Atlantic's Carl Pomeroy. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
Telegraph
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
What do you bid for Lady Mary's wedding dress? A first look at the great Downton auction
It's an uncanny experience to see a familiar costume from a beloved story on a mannequin, rather than its original wearer. It feels as though the character – or the actor who played them – is somehow present, or as if you have stumbled into a scene from a set so recognisable you feel you could find your way around it. Such is the case for anyone viewing the costumes of Downton Abbey, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed programmes in the history of British television (the series ran for six seasons) and the subject of an upcoming auction at Bonhams. Running online from 18 August to 16 September with an accompanying exhibition, the farewell auction will end as the third and final Downton film opens in cinemas. Will you bid? Downton Abbey: The Auction will feature 120 props, pieces of furniture and, most excitingly, costumes, meaning that fans will be able to bid on everything from the iconic Downton butler bell (estimated at £5,000-7,000) and Grantham family car (£25,000-35,000) to Lady Mary's wedding dress (£3,000-5,000) and some of the late Dame Maggie Smith's most memorable outfits from her unforgettable turn as Violet Crawley (£2,000-3,000). Known for their extraordinary level of detail and historical accuracy, the costumes not only chart the evolution of the denizens of Downton, but also shifting fashion throughout the eras. 'We've been able to embrace and explore these really important sartorial steps forward, from 1912 to 1930,' says Anna Robbins, the Emmy-nominated costume designer who took the reins from the fifth series onwards, speaking to The Telegraph at Bonhams. 'It's a drama with such heart and it's about family, but it also tells the story of our time.' That story may be about to draw to a close, but its costumes offer the chance to relive it all, a source of nostalgia for nobody more than Robbins. 'It's like being reunited with old friends,' she says. 'When I'm in the process of designing and making them, I'm so focused and obsessed with every detail. But then you have to kind of set them free – you have to let them go. The fact that someone will now own them and be able to see all the hours that have gone into each one is amazing.' For Charlie Thomas, group director for Private and Iconic Collections at Bonhams UK, this has been particularly striking. 'The extraordinary attention to detail is visible everywhere,' he says, 'from Mrs Patmore's handwritten recipes to the many revived costumes made with original vintage fabrics, like the famously 'modern' harem pants costume worked on by Lady Sybil in the first series.' A historic treasure hunt Behind such recognisable pieces is painstaking work. Every costume began with extensive research, Robbins says, from poring over Chanel back catalogues to scouring the V&A. Then, sourcing could commence, which sent her (and her surprisingly streamlined team) trawling through Portobello Market, uncovering gems in Islington vintage shops and returning to favoured spots such as Chez Sarah in Paris. Original pieces were restored, vintage finds were adapted, and some looks were created from scratch. 'You have a shopping list in mind, but also find pieces that feel true to character and stockpile them for when the moment arises,' says Robbins. Examples from the auction abound, including the dress Lady Mary wore for her visit to the Criterion Restaurant in London with Henry Talbot in series six. The dress, estimated to sell for £1,000-1,500, achieves so much: embodying the bias-cut glamour of the period, echoing the gold mosaic ceiling for which the Criterion is known, nodding to a gown Lady Edith wore to the same venue in an earlier series. And all this is thanks to an overlay crafted from original 1920s metallic floral lace. 'I found about six metres of it, which is really rare to uncover – I'd never seen anything like it,' says Robbins. 'I wasn't completely sure what to do with it until I read the script of the scene.' Such layers of meaning are a common theme. It was unusual, however, to have such a plentiful supply of original material. But as Robbins explains, necessity often gave rise to creativity, as in an elaborate sea green ensemble Lady Violet wore in series six. 'You've got a finite amount of material, not rolls and rolls like in a couture atelier,' she says. 'So with this piece we added tassels and an Egyptology-inspired section that we pieced together to form a seam.' The cinematic finale Revisiting past costumes was a useful tool for Robbins when it came to working on the upcoming Downton film Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale which is set in 1930, bringing a new decade to be explored through costume. 'It was incredible to be able to really dig into a new look,' she says. 'The key change is the shift from the quite androgynous, straight up and down silhouette of the 1920s finding form in the 1930s.' Fans who have spotted Lady Mary's striking scarlet gown in the advert for the final film will know exactly what Robbins means. But while we wait with mixed emotions for the final instalment from the Crawley family and co. to be released, it's heartening to know that the chance to rediscover it all is also imminent. And, for the lucky few, the opportunity to own a piece of Downton for posterity.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fans find it ‘hard to say goodbye' as Downton Abbey releases final film trailer
Downton Abbey fans are emotional after the trailer for the last film in the period drama series was released. The new full trailer for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, set in the 1930s, shows all the familiar faces returning to their beloved estate as Downton Abbey is soon to be passed from the 7th Earl of Grantham, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville), to his daughter Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). However, news of her divorce from Matthew Goode's Henry Talbot might put her impending stewardship in jeopardy. At a social event, a new character played by Joely Richardson asks Lady Mary to leave immediately, announcing: 'She's divorced!' lady Mary of Downton Abbey files for divorce SO TRUEEEEE — nina | lady mary DIVORCEE era (@abcdockery) June 30, 2025 The trailer also shows the return of Paul Giamatti as Harold Levinson, with some bad news for sister and Countess of Grantham, Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern). As in the previous trailer, it appears the family's financial troubles might see them sell and leave the abbey for good, as Robert is seen kissing the wall of the building and walking away from it. Fans were sentimental as they remembered Dame Maggie Smith's iconic Violet Crawley, as a shot showed a portrait of Violet displayed on a wall inside the stately Yorkshire home. 'As a huge fan of Downton Abbey, it's incredibly hard to say goodbye. This show and the movies has been a part of my life for so many years, it truly became like a second family, with characters I've grown to love deeply. Every story deserves an ending, and though it's difficult, especially with the loss of the incomparable Maggie Smith, I'm grateful that Violet's chapter was beautifully closed while she was still with us. In many ways, it feels like the right time to let go,' one fan wrote on YouTube. 'Absolutely cannot wait to see this! Though I don't want it to end. Make a prequel with Maggie Smith's character as a young woman,' wrote another. Fans also appreciated the change in the once-contentious dynamic between sisters Mary and Edith (Laura Carmichael), which now seemed much warmer. if only sybil could see them now. #DowntonAbbey — val (she/her) 🇵🇸 (@edithcrxwley) June 30, 2025 'long live Downton Abbey.''amen to that.'i'm not crying you are. — lucy (@winonasfilm) June 30, 2025 The official synopsis for the film reads: 'When Mary finds herself in a public scandal and the family faces financial trouble, the household grapples with the threat of social disgrace. The Crawleys must embrace change with the next generation leading Downton Abbey into the future.' Downton Abbey ran for six seasons on ITV, from 2010 to 2015. The first spin-off film was released in 2019, followed by A New Era in 2022. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale will be released in cinemas on 12 September.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Look: 'Downton Abbey' finale trailer to drop Monday
June 29 (UPI) -- The first trailer for the third and final Downton Abbey movie is expected to drop online Monday. "It all leads here. The new trailer for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale arrives tomorrow," a post on the franchise's X feed said Sunday. The trilogy follows a beloved TV drama that aired for six seasons on ITV and PBS from 2010 through 2015. Starring Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Joanne Froggatt, Allen Leech, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Phyllis Logan, Tom Cullen, Lesley Nicol, Sophie McShera, Raquel Cassidy, Kevin Doyle, Julian Ovenden and Jeremy Swift, the franchise follows the wealthy Crawley family and those who serve them at their British countryside mansion between the years of 1912 and 1930. It all leads here. The new trailer for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale arrives tomorrow. Downton Abbey (@DowntonAbbey) June 29, 2025
Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Ben Bolt obituary, director behind Downton Abbey and Doc Martin
When Ben Bolt was sent the script for a television drama about an aristocratic family and their domestic servants in post-Edwardian England, his every instinct told him that it was a winner. As a director whose credits spanned the Atlantic and ranged from The Sweeney and Bergerac to Hill Street Blues and LA Law, he thrived on the challenge of taking a great story from page to screen — and as he read Julian Fellowes's outline for the first series of what was to become Downton Abbey, he almost purred with pleasure. The script had been sent to him by his old friend Gareth Neame, the executive producer on the project and with whom he made the 1998 thriller Getting Hurt as part of the BBC's Obsessions series. Would he be interested in directing a few episodes? At the time he was working on the fifth series of Doc Martin, the ITV comedy drama starring Martin Clunes, but the question was a no-brainer. Bolt went on to direct two of the first three episodes of Downton Abbey, setting up one of the most successful TV dramas of the 21st century. That first series won half a dozen Emmy awards, a Golden Globe and a brace of Baftas and included perhaps the most famous line of all in Downton Abbey's 52 episodes, when Maggie Smith as the dowager countess Violet Crawley demanded to know: 'What is a weekend?' Almost as memorable was her comment that 'No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else's house' after a Turkish diplomat suffered a heart attack while staying at the Abbey. The great dame, of course, was already famous for her portrayal of another dowager countess, Lady Bracknell, and her delivery of the famous 'handbag' line had entered theatrical legend. 'If there's an old bat to play, it'll be me,' she said when Downton Abbey launched in 2010. Tailor-made as the matriarch of the Crawley family, she perhaps needed little coaching, yet she worked assiduously with Bolt on getting exactly the right nuance of aristocratic battiness into her lines and characterisation. Bolt's dedication to his craft was a watchword and 'going the extra mile' as a director was not optional but mandatory. Whatever the amount of effort required, the only criterion was that the work had to be the best quality and if one more take was needed to get it exactly right, it would be done whatever the clock and the budget said. 'However hairy things got, everyone on set knew Ben would protect the integrity of the work,' one of the actors who worked with him noted. Yet at the same time he was the opposite of a stentorian martinet and coaxed the best out of cast and crew alike with a gentle charm and good humour. 'He always made the job fun, even when we were inevitably running over to get that one last take,' another of his actors recalled. When his wife Jo (née Ross), an actress, predeceased him in 2023, he was bereft without his life partner. He is survived by their daughter, Molly Bolt, a film producer with House Productions. She remembered as a young girl being embarrassed by his terrible singing when he was walking her to school. Before she married, he took singing lessons because he didn't want to embarrass her by singing out of tune in church on her wedding day. It was another example of him 'going the extra mile'. In turn, during the cancer that beset him during his final two years, she accompanied him to every appointment with his doctors and consultant. Devoted to his family, he was thrilled by the arrival of his first grandson, Leo, six months before he died. Away from the film set, he loved messing around on sail boats and was an enthusiastic tennis player. The actor Simon Williams, his long-term opponent and partner on court, recalled that he managed to be 'competitive and comedic at the same time' and when he played a poor shot would let out a frustrated cry of 'Ben-e-diiiict!' The record number of 'Benedicts' in a set was said to be only six, which suggested that his smashes and lobs found their mark more often than they missed. Benedict Lawrence Bolt was born in 1952, the son of Jo (née Roberts), a novelist, and Robert Bolt, in Butleigh, Somerset, where his father, who would go on to write the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Man for All Seasons, was teaching at Millfield School. His parents divorced when he was ten and his father married the actress Sarah Miles. It meant he saw less of him than he would have wished but they retained a close relationship. After Robert suffered a stroke, he lived for a time with his son and daughter-in-law and when he died in 1995, he bequeathed the responsibility for protecting his work to him in his will. Educated at Brockenhurst Grammar School, Bolt went on to the Courtauld Institute of Art but left without completing his studies. He continued to draw all his life but he had caught the film bug while accompanying his father on sets as a boy, and keen to launch a career in the industry, he enrolled at the National Film School. In later life he returned to the school as a lecturer and is remembered by former students as a mentor with a bottomless well of encouragement and advice. His breakthrough as a freelance TV director came in the mid-1970s when he took charge of episodes of the ITV dramas Van der Valk and The Sweeney, and Target for the BBC. By the mid-1980s he had been headhunted by the American networks. He had flown to Los Angeles for a meeting out of little more than curiosity but when he was offered Hill Street Blues he stayed for the best part of a decade, setting up home in the Hollywood Hills. On his return to Britain in the 1990s he directed the acclaimed TV mini-series Scarlet and Black starring Ewan McGregor and Rachel Weisz as well as his wife, and Wilderness starring Gemma Jones as a librarian-cum-werewolf. There were also a number of made-for-TV films including a splendid adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw with Colin Firth. One of his greatest successes came with the long-running Doc Martin, shot on location in the Cornish fishing village of Port Isaac, and which he directed from its launch in 2003 over five seasons until 2011, drawing a viewing audience of more than ten million. He also turned his hand to writing scripts for episodes of the comedy drama, something friends and family urged him to do more. The shadow of a screenwriting father with a brace of Oscars to his name perhaps made him more reticent than he need have been. The final project he was involved in was the currently touring version of his father's play A Man for All Seasons, starring Martin Shaw as Thomas More and which is due to arrive in the West End at the Harold Pinter Theatre in August. Bolt acted as a consultant, attending read-throughs and rehearsals and with his daughter attended a performance at the Oxford Playhouse three months before he died. Ben Bolt, director and screenwriter, was born on May 9, 1952. He died of leukaemia on May 10, 2025, aged 73
