royalty
When Snowdon starred in Peter Sellers' home movieFriday, 13 January 2017
On screen, two hoodlums in macs and homburgs debate the best way to waste a victim. One of them, played by Peter Sellers, proffers a revolver. The other, who from under his hat has something of Herbert Lom about his profile, pulls on a cigarette and... Read more... |
Portrait of the Artist, The Queen's GallerySaturday, 26 November 2016
Born in Rome and taught by her artist father, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) led a colourfully energetic life. As an adolescent she was raped by her father’s assistant – an episode which unusually, then as now, actually came to public trial... Read more... |
The Crown, NetflixSaturday, 05 November 2016
Peter Morgan can't get enough of Her Majesty. Ten years ago he wrote The Queen (with Helen Mirren starring), in 2013 he brought us the stage play The Audience (Dame Helen, again), and now he's written all 10 episodes of this first series of Netflix'... Read more... |
Victoria, Series Finale, ITVMonday, 10 October 2016
One down, eight childbirths to go. The young Queen Victoria was delivered of her first child at the climax of this moreish opening series, and the bells of Windsor tolled for joy. ITV, debutant scriptwriter Daisy Goodwin and biographical consultant... Read more... |
Versailles, Series Finale, BBC TwoThursday, 11 August 2016
So much has happened since the first of June when Versailles flounced on to our screens with its flowing locks and flashing cocks. The British people have voted to widen the Channel, the Conservatives have a new leader, Labour doesn’t have one and... Read more... |
Versailles, BBC TwoThursday, 09 June 2016
In the middle of the last century the worst thing that could be said about a working-class housewife was that she had “run off with a black man”. Well, the Queen of France, no better than she ought to be, has had it off with a black man (in fact her... Read more... |
The Windsors, Channel 4Saturday, 07 May 2016
There’s little chance, I would guess, that the Windsors were gathered on the sofa to watch The Windsors last night. The show, thankfully, is not another attempt to oil up the collective fundament of the British royal family (and goodness knows... Read more... |
Kings of War, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, BarbicanMonday, 25 April 2016
Banished from the Barbican are the hollow kings of the mediocre RSC Henrys IV and V. In their place comes a whole new procession of living, breathing monarchs in a vision that's light years away from bad heritage Shakespeare. Doyen of Dutch-Belgian... Read more... |
Richard II, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 24 July 2015
The earthy contact with groundlings that Shakespeare’s Globe offers in its stagings makes a comical but telling context for Richard II, a play largely about political point-scoring between kings. The people whose interests lie so remote, in reality... Read more... |
King Lear, Northern Broadsides, TouringMonday, 25 May 2015
Jonathan Miller’s new King Lear is rustic to its core, spoken in broad Northern accents, and the whole production could be packed onto a travelling theatre’s wagon and taken around Britain pulled by a couple of shire horses.Yet rather than cost the... Read more... |
A Royal Night OutThursday, 14 May 2015
The ongoing penchant for all things royal reaches a momentary impasse with A Royal Night Out, an eye-rollingly silly imagining of what the young Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth might have got up to on VE Day. Its release timed to coincide with the... Read more... |
The Audience, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 06 May 2015
As The Queen gains an audience with the latest royal addition, her theatrical alter ego returns to the West End, with Kristin Scott Thomas inheriting Tony-nominated Helen Mirren’s role in Peter Morgan’s updated revival. Callaghan is out; au courant... Read more... |
