The Blog

So sorry to those of you who got in touch about the play presentation today and were disappointed not to get tickets. The venue is TINY – 80 seats – and we simply can’t fit any more in, because of fire regulations.

There’s a lot of “industry” interest in this play, so there’s a decent chance it will have a life beyond tomorrow, and be seen again in a more developed state – so watch this space! But please don’t come down to RADA if you don’t have a confirmed invite, because we just won’t be allowed to let you in!

A Very Happy 2013 to everyone!

Right now it’s eyes down to get everything sorted for Andrew Visnevski’s rehearsed presentation at 7 p.m. at the GBS Theatre on Thursday January 10th of



PLEASE NOTE EVERYONE: Admission to this is by invitation only – see below.

(If you scroll down a couple of entries there’s more about this)

Somehow, notwithstanding the festive holidays, we have assembled a remarkable cast. 

Two of the RADA graduates from my time, CHARLES AITKEN and OONA CHAPLIN will now be taking part, joining a distinguished company including TAMSIN GRIEG, MIRIAM MARGOLYES, JEMMA REDGRAVE and JASON ISAACS.

Tickets for this event are going to be very limited, and priority will be given to “industry” contacts who may be interested in further production opportunities for the play – which is of course the object of the exercise! Please email me here via ellis@ellisjonescoach.co.uk if you would like to come, and we’ll try to find you a seat – but be warned, there is already considerable interest and it’s a very small theatre. It’s a really intriguing play, with some cracking parts for women. 

Avernus, I hear you say. Avernus? What, who? Is it a car-hire firm, a dodgy international bank (is there any other kind?) or an even dodgier dating agency? That scornful harrumphing noise comes of course from those of you with a classical education – for dear friends, Avernus is a crater in Italy which was believed by the ancient Romans to be the entrance to the Underworld. There’s a reference to it in “Absolute Hell” – which for those of you who missed it, went extremely well thankyou for asking, and delivered a range of very tidy performances, much appreciated by what I’m told were larger than usual audiences at the Embassy Theatre. I had five demanding, fulfilling weeks working with some brilliant Central students, but now have slipped away from the gentle slopes of NW3, and am back in the Elysian Fields of E17, as the pre-Christmas sleet whips across the marshes.

It is, it seems a season of dark titles. Lois and I went to the last night of “Damned by Despair” at the National. Not, I would have said the most commercial of phrases to put on a poster – it hardly sparkles with the promise of Wodehousian wit, does it? I went because Bertie Carvel was in it – and was, it has to be said, extremely good, as were all the other actors. But it was a turgid, sluggish slice of Spanish 16th century religious drama, warmed over by Frank McGuinness. Very Catholic, very intense, relieved by odd moments of spectacle, such as Bertie being hung for mass murder and then hauled off up into the Olivier flies in a blaze of power-can lighting representing Glory and Salvation, because he’d repented. You see. Anyway, Bertie and the rest of the team were very philosophical in the green room afterwards, I think quite relieved that the NT management had taken the piece off ahead of schedule, owing to declining box-office. And now Bertie C is off to Broadway, to repeat his astonishing, Olivier-winning triumph as Miss Trunchbull in “Matilda” – so the very very best of luck on the Great White Way…..

To balance the export of London plays to New York, I’m now involved in importing one to London from Philadelphia. A very old friend, the New York producer Sean Hewitt and I have teamed up with my former RADA colleague Andrew Visnevski to create a rehearsed, staged reading of a play by Arden Kass.

It’s a fascinating story, and has been in development in America for a couple of years. In November Andrew joined the author for a set of workshops with some Philadelphia actors, and a neat, intriguing script has emerged. It’s set partly in Manhattan in the 1970s, partly in Prague in the 1930s, and partly during the war in the Terezin concentration camp. It has a number of strong parts for women.    In an early reading in New York Miriam Margolyes read the part of Malka, as she will in the London presentation, which is being supported by American sponsors. As of today she’s going to be joined by Tamsin Greig, Jemma Redgrave and Jason Isaacs – expect further casting to be announced over the next few days.

It’s going to be a one-off presentation at the GBS Theatre RADA on January 10th. If you’re a producer, director, an investor or are simply interested in new exciting theatre ventures and would like to come, contact me via ellis@ellisjonescoach.co.uk.

This could be quite an event.

I’m hoping that one or two of the RADA alumni might be able to join us. One who’s going to be too exhausted is Sally Hawkins. I went to see her and Rafe Spall in “Constellations” at the Duke of Yorks. In the tube on the way home a man sitting opposite my friend and I noticed we were looking at the programme -“I went to that” says he “I went because I’ve got a man-crush on Rafe Spall! It was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen…” Well both Rafe and Sally (on whom I’ve had a man-crush since she turned up as one of our students at RADA) are very fine, and it’s a gripping display of inspired storytelling, brilliantly directed. It closes on January 5th.

November in NW3 has been a busy month, grafting away at the Central School with some remarkable new young actors. The show we’re putting on is designed by my long-term comrade-in-arms, the brilliant Alexander McPherson, and is a truly striking piece about the life of a struggling young artist in the gay, often desperate, shifting world of Soho during the General Election of 1945.

If you’re in London, please come.

ABSOLUTE HELL  by Rodney Ackland

The reasons for my embarking on this blog include the theatre critics! So often I go to see a play, then look back over the reviews and reflect on how unhelpful the reviewers have been. They’ve usually seen the show at a “press night”, they’ve see it through their own peculiar prism of a life spent peering at performers while honing pithy phrases, to upload instantly to their publication or website – often within minutes of the last actor traipsing off into the wings. Then whatever they’ve come up with hangs about in print and on the Web, affecting ticket sales, affecting other people’s enjoyment or otherwise of the piece, and very often affecting actors’ chances of future employment. 

Now, I know a) that this is the Way of the World, and nothing can be done about it, and b) that what I write is yet another personal, partial reaction, but I try to offer a perspective as one who’s been involved with the craft for decades, who finds inordinate fun in the whole process, and wishes all who set out on the high-wire at least a few cheers and maybe a decent parachute!

Take for instance, the comments in that otherwise fine paper, the “i”, about “King Lear” at the Almeida. Jonathan Pryce is faintly praised for “a lucidly pondered” performance as the King in Michael Attenborough’s “considered” production, in which “both fall short of the emotional extremity that the tragedy requires….” Eh? Not the night I saw it! It’s a cracking, brilliantly paced production and Jonathan Pryce, for my money, has pulled off a fantastic sequel to the best “Hamlet” I’ve ever seen, at the Royal Court back in 1980. Like the Hamlet, this King Lear is an unsettling maverick, edgy and unpredictable, who nonetheless takes you to the raw core of human experience, to the guts of the tragedy, and had me quietly weeping as he sat there holding the corpse of the once-beloved daughter he has spurned and cursed.

  

There’s also a fine set of supporting performances all round, including a sharp Geordie Fool from Trevor Fox, and a strong, rather scary Goneril from one of our mentors at  www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk, the always superb Zoe Waites. Zoe came along to talk with the NYU students last week, bringing lots of insight into the painstaking process top classical actors go through in rehearsal to bring us performances of this calibre.

Talking of painstaking work, the “i” has redeemed itself by placing under the banner “If You Only See One Thing Today” the Tricycle Theatre production of “Red Velvet”. If you have any interest at all in the art of acting, and want to see a truly remarkable example of good, well-researched historical story-telling matched with quite brilliant performances – then GO AND SEE THIS – you’ve only a fews more days left! 



As it happens, Adrian Lester, who stars as the real-life, great 19th century actor Ira Aldrige, and the playwright Lolita Chakrabarti are both RADA graduates, serving as distinguished members of the academy’s council, and Charlotte Lucas (pictured here playing Ellen Tree) is yet another former student from my time in Gower St. Their talents combine with those of an equally talented company to create a unique, quite startling  event. If you’ve ever looked at those old prints of actors striking dramatic poses and wondered how such odd-seeming behaviour could move huge audiences to profound grief, joy and wonder, then these actors show how. Adrian is to move on to the National and create his own version of Othello in the spring of next year – notes to be made in the diary.  

October being well under way, it’s fun to be dealing with two species of student, one lot who think it’s the Autumn Term, and another lot working through something called the Fall Semester.

I’m in pre-production meetings with the technical and design teams up at Swiss Cottage with the Central School of Speech and Drama – of which more below – and meanwhile applying myself to the onerous task of sharing theatre visits with young Americans on the NYU London programmes. OK, programs.


At home, the marshland trees are glinting coppery colours, especially the sumacs in my garden, and the deciduous parade out along Coppermill Lane, planted by the ever-environmental Thames Water Ltd…