#alistair toovey

[ghostlypawn]

Legally Blonde (2022) | Regent Park’s Open Air Theatre

📸: Pamela Raith

[unlimited-rice-puddin]

Legally Blonde Review: Whipped Into Shape by a Sublime Cast

★★★☆☆ Open Air Theatre's #legallyblonde undeniably has a world class cast, but they are dramatically hampered by a production that does not make an effort to reinvent or adapt itself to the unique space

Lucy Moss’ production for Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre clearly demonstrates that even the most phenomenal casting can only take you so far ★★★☆☆ (more…)

[oughttobeclowns]

Review: Legally Blonde, Open Air Theatre

Review: Legally Blonde, Open Air Theatre Not liking this would be like putting a half loop stitch on china silk

Lucy Moss refreshes and reinvigorates Legally Blonde the musical in iconic style at the Open Air Theatre “If you’re wrong, we look desperate AND homophobic” The Open Air Theatre isn’t a venue one necessarily associates with taking risks, so getting SIX co-creator Lucy Moss to direct a wonderfully diverse and queered-up revival of Legally Blonde feels like an excitingly big swing. Quite how it…

[movies-to-add-to-your-tbw]

Title: Rosaline

Rating: PG-13

Director: Karen Maine

Cast: Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Kyle Allen, Sean Teale, Minnie Driver, Bradley Whitford, Henry Hunter Hall, Spencer Rayshon Stevenson, Nico Hiraga, Christopher McDonald, Mercedes Colon, Alistair Toovey, Nicholas Rowe, Valentina Carnelutti, Alhaji Fofana

Release year: 2022

Genres: romance, comedy

Blurb: Left heartbroken after Romeo begins to pursue her cousin Juliet, Rosaline schemes to foil the famous romance and win back her guy.

[thewhizzyhead]

holy shit

[dxntloseurhead]

alistair toovey as warner ft. courtney bowman as elle woods 💞

[lietulietas]

[pekaho]

‘TUT’, David Von Ancken

(Toutânkhamon : Le Pharaon maudit)

Toutânkhamon : on sait peu de choses sur le déroulement de son existence, et il fut enterré presque comme un anonyme. Cette mini-série (3 films de 90mn) extrapole et invente en grande partie la vie du pharaon.

Dans la première partie, le thème de l’immersion secrète du pharaon dans la vie du peuple est ce qu’il y a de plus émouvant (fabuleuse interprétation d’Avan Jogia). Ses promenades incognito lui permettent de ressentir l’atmosphère de la ville, d’écouter ce qui se dit, y compris sur lui. Il perçoit l’écart entre la vie du palais et celle au dehors, notamment la souffrance des gens surtaxés et leur difficulté à se nourrir au quotidien. On penserait presque à la vie du prince Siddhartha, quittant la vie protégée du palais pour partir à la recherche d’une compréhension de la souffrance. Ici, lorsqu’un être découvre qui est son interlocuteur, sa réaction est intéressante, entre la soumission au tout-puissant, le choc de l’avoir côtoyé, et peut-être encore plus de l’avoir pris pour un être humain ‘comme les autres’. Ces thèmes donnent lieu à de très belles scènes, où la mini-série trouve son niveau d’excellence.

Mais ne nous y fions pas trop, ‘TUT’ est centrée sur les histoires de pouvoir et les joutes politiques. Et on se prend à rêver à un autre film, évoquant les passionnants sujets mystiques de l’époque, et notamment la naissance mystérieuse de l’alchimie, que l’on appelle parfois ‘l’égyptienne’, ou la construction des temples par les maitres ascensionnés. Ce film reste encore à faire… la plupart des films sur l’Egypte ancienne préférant, semble t-il, faire des parallèles (par toujours subtils) avec notre époque ou mettre l’accent sur des thématiques plus basiques.

La deuxième partie est féroce: manipulation et conspirations, trahisons et stratégies y sont de mise. Ce qui est émouvant, c’est de ressentir le poids que le pharaon a sur les épaules, la difficulté à faire confiance aux gens du palais qui défendent tous leurs propres intérêts, et son amour sincère pour le peuple d’Egypte. Ici, la compassion est présente, mais elle peine à s’imposer.

La troisième partie est orientée sur les thèmes plus primitifs de la guerre, de la vengeance et de la trahison. Elle est d’une grande violence (qui ne semble pas nécessaire) et d’une terrible cruauté. Et si elle est captivante grâce à des stratégies scénaristiques de suspens savamment entretenus (on sent ici tout le savoir faire des séries américaines calibrées et formatées), elle fait aussi redescendre son degré d’humanité. Ben Kingsley s’est choisi un rôle ambivalent et froid. Si son interprétation est impeccable, et son personnage antipathique omniprésent, ce n’est pas le plus passionnant. On retiendra par exemple l’excellent Alistair Toovey dans le rôle de Nahkt, qui interprète son fils, et dont l’histoire aurait mérité un film à lui tout seul, notamment sur sa tentative de se défaire de l’emprise du palais, et suivre un chemin de cœur. Mais un revirement de situation (pas très bien amené) fait dégringoler d’un coup l’espoir que nous pouvions avoir sur ce personnage. Bigre!

Le scénario fantasme la vie du souverain, car on a aujourd’hui peu d’éléments sur son histoire, qui a été effacée de nombreux documents. On ne connait pas les circonstances de sa mort, et si des spéculations ont été faites sur son existence, on n’est en réalité sûr de rien, à part qu’il s’est retrouvé très jeune sur le trône, vers neuf ou dix ans, et qu’on en a déduit que son entourage régnait à sa place. C’est donc aussi la limite de ce genre de production, qui utilise un nom renommé pour en faire un projet destiné au grand public, en mettant l’accent sur les conflits et les rivalités, plutôt que la beauté. On a misé sur la dramatisation des évènements, et les atroces agissements au sein du palais pour destituer le pharaon. Les personnages féminins sont forts (comme s’en vante le making of), mais aussi sacrément atroces (la reine, et sœur du pharaon). Si l’on est ébloui par le foisonnement coloré des costume, les décors fastueux, et ce très beau thème de l’intérêt du pharaon pour son peuple, il manque clairement une ambition humaine et du cœur à ce projet.

Dommage, en effet, que la mini-série se complaise dans cette violence (assez gore) et les batailles acharnées, et n’aborde l’extraordinaire thème de la spiritualité qu’au travers de la quête du pouvoir (l’atroce grand prêtre). Il en reste donc une épopée shakespearienne, riche en rebondissements, clairement fabriquée pour plaire au plus grand nombre, sans pousser la réflexion plus loin. Mais on garde une emprunte de ce visage presque impassible de Toutânkhamon, personnage humaniste (et cruel), qui cherche en lui la noblesse d’un cœur humain pour comprendre ce qui se passe autour de lui, et servir son peuple. Son amitié sincère et loyale avec Lagus (Iddo Goldberg), est le seul thème qui survive à cette déflagration de férocité.

Pk

[malisvaart]

Nahkt

[hayleysprout13]

Love Me Now @ Tristan Bates Theatre*

REVIEW | Love Me Now @ Tristan Bates Theatre* #LDNTheatreBloggers

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Tickets and more information: https://www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/whats-on/love-me-now Running until: 14th April 2018 Production photos by: Helen Murray After walking past the theatre many, many times, I was really intrigued by a new play by Michelle Barnette called Love Me Now, which has just opened at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden. The play centres around one unnamed…

[merlinfunandhotmerthurblr]

Thanks to : muche007 •  Colin Morgan, Translations > Some news about Colin’s new project at the National Theatre > From May 22nd to July 7th, 2018

Cast joining Colin Morgan in Translations at National Theatre announced . • Casting for numerous productions at the National Theatre has been announced, including for Brian Friel’s latest play, Translations.

...

Friel’s play is about Owen who returns to his rural Ireland hometown of Donegal from Dublin with two British army officers who aim to create a map of the area, changing the Gaelic names for English ones.  

Ciaran Hinds will join the previously announced Colin Morgan in Translations alongside Dermot Crowley, Aoife Duffin, Adetomiwa Edun, Michelle Fox, Laurence Kinlan, Seamus O’Hara, Judith Roddy and Rufus Wright. The production will be directed by Ian Rickson, with designs by Rae Smith, lighting by Neil Austin, music by Stephen Warbeck and sound by Ian Dickinson.

Translations will in the Olivier Theatre from 22nd May to 7th July, with an official opening night on 30th May. CR:https\://www.londontheatre.co.uk -  Stella*

• It also includes casting updates for Julie, a new adaptation of Strindberg’s play by Polly Stenham, and full casting for Brenden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon.

Polly Stenham’s Julie will update Strindberg’s classic Miss Julie, and sets it in contemporary London. Directed by Carrie Crackell, it will star Vanessa Kirby (The Crown), Eric Kofi Abrefa (The Amen Corner) and Thalissa Teixeira (Yerma), Thomasin Gulgec, Dak Mashava, Beatriz Meireles, Michela Meazza, Ashley Morgan-Davies, Yuyu Rau and Petra Söör.

The production will be designed by Tom Scutt, with lighting by Guy Hoare, movement by Ann Yee, music by Stuart Earl and sound by Christopher Shutt. It will run in the Lyttelton rom 31st May to 4th August, with an official opening night on 7th June.

In the Dorfman, An Octoroon will play from 7th June following an earlier run at the Orange Tree Theatre last year. The cast, directed by Ned Bennett, includes Cassie Clare, Emmanuella Cole, Celeste Dodwell, Iola Evans, Ken Nwosu, Vivan Oparah, Alistair Toovey and Kevin Trainor, and cellist, James Douglas. It runs until 19th July, with an official opening on 14th June.

It has also been announced that the theatre’s touring production of War Horse will return to the National, with a run in the Lyttelton from 8th November to mark the centenary of Armistice Day.

Last month, Adam Godley, Ben Miles and Simon Russell Beale were announced as part of the cast for the upcoming production of The Lehman Trilogy, which Sam Mendes will direct in the Lyttelton from July

Site: Via: >>>>> https://www.facebook.com/MerlinMerthurHotFun/

[ghostlypawn]

LEGALLY BLONDE | Open Air Theatre | 17-05-22

Cast: Courtney Bowman (Elle Woods), Michael Ahomka-Lindsay (Emmett Forrest), Alistair Toovey (Warner Huntington III), Nadine Higgin (Paulette), Vanessa Fisher (Vivienne Kensington), Lauren Drew (Brooke Wyndham), Eugene McCoy (Professor Callahan), Isaac Hesketh (Margot), Hannah Yun Chamberlain (Serena), Grace Mouat (Pilar), Alžbeta Matyšáková (Enid), Liam McEvoy (Bruiser), Gabriela Benedetti, Lucca Chadwick-Patel, Jasmin Colandelo, Allie Daniel, Joe Foster, Dominic Lamb, Esme Laudat, Billy Nevers

Notes: gift upon ask. it started raining just before take it like a man and the show was briefly stopped after so act 2 is split into 2 parts. there were a few microphone timing issues but that was expected as its previews. you can also hear a plane overhead briefly. enjoy!

feel free to ask any questions or share any thoughts :)

[judechristian]

Dark Night of the Soul

By Athena Stevens, Lily Bevan, Amanda Wilkin, Katie Hims, Rachael Spence and Lisa Hammond

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, January 2019

Cast: Athena Stevens, Lily Bevan, Amanda Wilkin, Rachael Spence, Lisa Hammond, Pauline McLynn, Mandi Symonds, Alistair Toovey, Lucie Sword, Louis Maskell, Jay Villiers, Wendy Kweh

Production photographer: Helen Murray

[theatrebubble]

Box of Delights at Wilton's Music Hall

3 stars for Box of Delights at Wilton's Music Hall @wiltonmusichall #BoxOfDelights

The faded grandeur of Victorian Wilton’s Music Hall in east London is a perfect fit for this re-imagining of John Masefield’s 1935 magical Christmas tale The Box of Delights. With a running time of 2 hours 40 minutes, including a 20-minute interval, this is a proper night out at the theatre and older children will delight in the occasion.

Matthew Kelly and Alistair Toovey in The Box of Delights…

[londontheatre]

L – R Josefina Kelly, Safiyya Ingar and Matthew Kelly

There is much to be uncovered at the start of this stage adaptation of The Box of Delights, in more ways than one. Everything was concealed with sheeting – there are no stage curtains at this venue for the set to hide behind. Set, rather specifically, according to the show’s programme, on ‘Tuesday 20th December 1938’ (and subsequent days leading up to Christmas Day itself), this is a period production, with costumes befitting the era.

The style in which some of the lines were delivered, however, was more 1830s than 1930s, with a considerable amount of melodrama. Naturalism couldn’t really permeate The Box of Delights in any event: the worldview is far from secular. That said, the Bishop of Tatchester (Mark Extance) seems to play Father Christmas himself during his (presumably full house) Christmas service, a departure from the usual religious platitudes about treasuring life and happiness over materialism.

The play is very plot-heavy, which is wonderful for people like me who have never seen the BBC Television series, first screened in 1984, or read John Masefield’s 1935 novel. But for whatever reason, perhaps in what I can only assume is a diligent and faithful commitment to bring as much of the original text ‘from page to stage’ as possible, the production drags, particularly in the second half, getting bogged down in the details of the storyline. The end result is that the play feels about twenty minutes longer than it ought to be.

Interval conversations indicated some concern about whether the younger members in the audience were able to follow everything going on. With the benefit of hindsight, I am unable to share such a viewpoint: this is an adaptation of a book written for children, and, at the risk of sounding terse, it’s not exactly rocket science. Young adult actors play the children: make of this what you will. Kay Harker (Alistair Toovey), Mariah Jones (Safiyya Ingar) and Peter Jones (Samuel Simmonds) are the adventurers. Cole Hawlings (Matthew Kelly, a suitably imposing presence, if a little peculiar) picks out Kay, returning home from boarding school back in the halcyon days when trains departed on time, as a rather unlikely custodian of The Box. Quite why it had to be Kay as opposed to anyone else wasn’t made clear as far as I could deduce, but this was hardly the salient point of the play.

There are three things The Box can accomplish, though I won’t say what they are here, and anyone who knows the story will know what those things are anyway. The key difference lies in the definition of the term ‘delights’ – in short, what one person finds delightful won’t appeal to someone else. It explains why Abner Brown (also Matthew Kelly; through inventive video technology, he ends up in one late scene playing both protagonist Hawlings and antagonist Brown at the same time) is obsessed with getting The Box for himself. If Brown were to take possession of The Box, his evil plans can be carried out with infinitely greater efficiency and effectiveness, y’see.

It would be disappointing, and downright weird, if, in a story of this nature, Brown won out in the end. The conclusion being easily predictable, some pleasure comes through the journey the audience is taken on. The animal puppetry, as well as providing a way for the production to work with neither children nor animals, is as good as it is in The Lion King. The concluding scene seemed to wrap everything up too abruptly, especially given the almost laborious narrative that came before.

Some humour comes through in the form of double meanings of phrases that are better suited to pantomime. Overall, this is a production that could really shine if it were more streamlined.

Review by Chris Omaweng

The Box of Delights, a magical Christmas adventure packed with time travel, talking animals, flying cars, good versus evil and festive fun on Thursday 7th December at Wilton’s Music Hall, the most Christmassy venue in London. Based on John Masefield’s 1935 festive novel and the subsequent BBC series which became an instant hit and cult classic, this is the first time the story of orphan Kay Harker, the boy that must save Christmas, has been adapted for the stage. Written by celebrated children’s author Piers Torday (The Last Wild trilogy, There May Be A Castle), directed by Justin Audibert with stunning design from Tom Piper and starring family favourite Matthew Kelly and West End star Josefina Gabrielle, this is a feast of yuletide fun guaranteed to get everyone in the Christmas spirit.

Cast Mark Extance Josefina Gabrielle Tom Kanji Matthew Kelly Safiyya Ingar Samuel Simmonds Rosalind Steele Alistair Toovey

Creative Team Writer – Piers Torday Director – Justin Audibert Designer – Tom Piper Lighting Designer – Anna Watson Video Designer – Nina Dunn Composer and Sound Designer – Ed Lewis Movement Director – Simon Pittman Puppetry Designer – Samuel Wyer Casting Director – Vicky Richardson

Listings Information Dates: 01 December 2017 to 06 January 2018 http://ift.tt/1kvB2XQ

http://ift.tt/2yOSosU London Theatre 1

[lietulietas]