The Blog

Now, since my last rather gloomy post, things have looked up somewhat. Having recently collided with a London Transport bus and walked away leaving it with a shattered windscreen, I reflected on the ambulance-driver’s comment about my perhaps being made of kryptonite, and was thus intrigued to learn that the original Kryptonite Being was about to appear in Walthamstow.

I hastened to Ye Olde Rose and Crown at Hoe St, to take a look at a revival of a 1960s American musical ITS’ A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPERMAN! Now to be absolutely frank, the bar for musical theatre in London these days is set pretty high by the West End, and especially the West End transfers from the big subsidised companies like the RSC “Matilda”, and the musicals I’ve seen in pub theatres have been pretty lack-lustre, not say embarrassingly inept, so my expectations weren’t of the highest.

Well, this show is terrific! Neatly directed and tightly choreographed, this has “cult hit” written all over it, so grab a ticket while you can.The script is daft – so was the original comic-strip – but is delivered by the production and its cast with dogged seriousness, without the slightest hint of tongue in any onstage cheek. The songs are delivered with huge, infectious enthusiasm and considerable skill. Both of the leads – Craig Berry as Clark Kent/Superman with Michelle LaFortune as Lois Lane – are strong professional singers, while Craig Berry has a nice line in wry, self-deprecating comedy, and Ms LaFortune’s way with a sexy solo is dynamite. Or do I mean kryptonite?  Don’t delay, it’s only on for a couple more weeks, and the theatre is easily reached from Walthamstow Central on the Victoria Line, or Overground from Liverpool St.

Here’s a link to buying tickets online: http://allstarproductions.ticketsource.co.uk

And so spring comes to London – at least for the time being. Waterside is be-set with daffodils and geese. So far this year I’ve cut the grass twice, which for early March is well, weird. All this unseasonal sunshine is very very welcome, but of course it brings an underlying unease. The floods in the west linger still. Those of us who grew up with John Wyndham’s novels – in particular “The Kraken Wakes”- aren’t surprised by the news that the Thames barrier is having to be checked for wear and tear after its unprecedented degree of recent use. The polar ice-caps really are melting. The day after tomorrow could be morphing into just tomorrow…

But before I set about building an ark in the garage, some more uplifting news. Make a note of this website: www.ceoemail.com Regular readers will know that colour was added to my recent journey to the antipodes by an unscheduled 19-hour stopover in Kiev. What added an unnecessary layer of frustration and annoyance was the attitude of the B.A. ground-staff when eventually I arrived in Singapore. I’d been assured in a phone-call to BA Customer services from Kiev that the fact that the – perfectly understandable and unavoidable – delay meant I had missed an overnight stay at a pre-booked Singapore hotel, plus an important meeting plus the ongoing flight to Wellington via Sydney  – all of this would be fully known by their team at Singapore, who would happily make alternative arrangements.

What actually happened was that the sole BA rep at Singapore appointed to deal with the hundred or so passengers with on-going journey problems, having kept me waiting for well over an hour,  told me that since my tickets were booked through Trailfinders I would have to telephone them in London to sort my on-going flights, that in fact there were no flights on to Sydney or Wellington that night (it was 11.30 p.m. local time) and I would have to go away and find myself a hotel. I shared with her my view that this was far from acceptable – in fact I shared it quite firmly, with a fair amount of breath-support – and that section of the airport went suddenly quiet. With very bad grace she bit her lip, sat down at her computer, and within 20 minutes I was on a plane to Sydney.

When eventually back in London, I was advised by Trailfinders to make a formal written complaint to BA. This I did, but it received no reply, not even an acknowledgement. After 3 weeks someone told me about the above web-site, where I found the contact details for the CEO of British Airways, and e-mailed him a copy of the so-far-ignored letter to his customer services department. There was an immediate response in the form of an assurance that the incident would be investigated. This was on Friday afternoon. First thing Monday morning came an e-mail from the customer services department containing a fulsome apology and a voucher for £200. Which movie was it when the cry was “I just won’t take it anymore!”?  My voucher, however, of course can only be spent on a BA flight….

Anyway, onwards into the springtime. Yesterday was the annual trade fair “Perform!” at Olympia. Despite the glorious weather there was a fair turn-out of young hopefuls investigating options for training, and I was on a panel organised by Matt Barber on the whys and wherefores of applying to UK drama schools, dealing with the perennial question “What exactly do audition panels look for…?” The answer of course being they don’t look for anything, but they tend to know the right mix of talent and character when they see it, so the advice is always “Just be yourself”. The tricky bit of course, is finding out who you are…

The week ahead holds for me events featuring Tom Hiddleston and George Orwell. Here’s your starter for ten. I give my classes for American students at the University of London Senate House beside Russell Square. What link does that building have with Orwell’s “1984”? Or for that matter with the poet John Betjeman and his famous lust for Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn?

I feel I’ve been living in the Book of Job. Since my return from foreign parts I have been thrice struck down with unkind afflictions. Firstly, the evening of the February London Hurricane I returned home at 10.30 to find that while Walthamstow clattered and rattled, and the reservoirs churned and frothed under 80 mile-an-hour gusts, the house had been broken into and ransacked. Secondly, for the first time in years the world of television drama seemed to have rediscovered the once noted Jones flair for comedy with an obviously tailor-made part, which looked oh so promising and then evaporated…and thirdly I got knocked down by a bus! What next, boils?

In fact the benighted house-robbers made off with only a few items, but they did include my best camera and most annoyingly a box-set of audio recordings of Charles Dickens’s “Dombey and Son” read by my chum David Timson. Vile felons they may be, but at least they showed some taste…

My survival from colliding with a double-decker was something of a miracle. My abject apologies to those whose journey home last Tuesday was stymied as the New Oxford St rush-hour traffic ground to a halt in a flurry of flashing blue-lights. No excuse, all my fault – I’d forgotten that what was once an eastbound one-way street now has a single westbound lane just for buses, and was simply looking the wrong way as I set off to cross the road. My profound thanks to the bus-driver who instantly called the ambulance from behind his shattered windscreen, to the kindly passer-by who picked me up and sat me on a nearby bench, and to the cheerful ambulance crew who pronounced that almost all such cases result in fatality, and that since all I seemed to have was a badly bruised shoulder they would ask the UCH accident and emergency nurses to check if I was made of kryptonite… And lastly regrets to my pals from the RADA Enterprises team, with whom I had so looked forward to spending the evening reuniting over a glass or two at Truckles Wine Bar.

But hey, I’m on the mend, and it’s St David’s Day…here’s my window-sill this misty morning, complete with obligatory daffodils, and an apologetic salute to Transport for London via my red bus money-box:

Meanwhile, the new season of theatre-going with bright young Americans from New York University is well under way. We’ve been to Turgenev”s “Fortune’s Fool” at the Old Vic, to Dawn King’s “Ciphers” at the Bush, to Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” at the Young Vic, and to Nick Payne’s “Blurred Lines” at the National Theatre’s stand-in space for the Cottesloe Theatre, the Shed. To use an American phrase, the “stand-out” shows so far have been the Beckett and “Blurred Lines”.

Beckett is very much a Marmite writer – I’m a huge fan, though tend either to leave the theatre feeling sad and anxious for the human race, or filled with a sense of cautious hope, and marvelling at the compelling language and imagery. Juliet Stevenson’s Winnie (admirably supported by David Beams, and skilfully directed by Natalie Abrahami) is gloriously perky, spirited and brave as she deals with her predicament, up to her waist – and then up to her neck – in gritty sand.

We don’t get to see Juliet Stevenson in the theatre too often, so here’s a chance to witness a seriously fine artist at the height of her powers. The night we were there the place was full of young people, who were all clearly riveted, and all my New Yorkers were entranced. It’s the kind of writing that only works if it’s brilliantly acted – the Late Dame Peggy Ashcroft declared Winnie a challenge for a female actor on a par with “Hamlet” for a male. 

Which leads neatly to more Radagrad news – if you live in the north, book now for “Hamlet” at the Manchester Royal Exchange, where the noble Dane is about to be given a fresh work-over by the dazzlingly talented Maxine Peake. When Maxine first joined us at Gower St, the South Bank Show did a piece on this young Lancashire lass coping with getting into RADA, and intended to follow up 3 years later with a film on her struggles finding an agent and getting a career under way at the end of the course. However, before she’d even finished training Maxine had been spotted by Victoria Wood, and was already well on her way to being a star…

Another always watchable graduate from my time is Sinead Matthews, who was one of a team of high-octane women performing at The Shed in an angry response  to the notorious “Blurred Lines” pop-music video, scripted by Nick Payne and directed by Carrie Cracknell. The cast were all quite stunning – they included Marion Bailey, Ruth Sheen and Claire Skinner – and the stage crackled with brilliant creativity. It’s finished now, but it was a great example of, well, almost what we used to call agit-prop theatre, a polemic show that knows its cause is just and true, and doesn’t take any prisoners. At all. It was a short run, and it’s over – but hurray,  we can catch Sinead again very soon, in a new two-hander by Vivienne Franzmann, “Pests” at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs from March 27th. Anyone who saw her haunting work in the Complicite version of “The Master and Margarita” will know that a spring-time trip to Sloane Square has to go into the diary.

My 2014 diary is beginning to bulge. I’ve just found out that two more of my favourite grads, Ed Bennett and Michelle Terry Brown are going to team up for “Love’s Labours Lost” and “Much Ado” for the RSC at Stratford this summer.  When last in Warwickshire Ed scored a huge success taking over from David Tennant as “Hamlet”, and Michelle was a gloriously sexy Titania in “The Dream” last season at Shakespeare’s Globe. 

While both are outstanding performers, both Ed and Miche are wonderfully eloquent. (Ed is sometimes available as a tutor via ellisjonescoach.co.uk, and Michelle co-wrote and starred in the lovely Sky sitcom, “The Cafe“.) You can watch them each being interviewed about acting in Shakespeare if you click on their names in the paragraph above.

So, back to the Avon in the summer time. I can’t wait – maybe I’ll go by boat…

Before I sign off, a mention of the Bath half-marathon, which takes place tomorrow March 2nd, and my daughter Cressida is running on behalf of Alzheimer’s Research. If anyone would like to sponsor her for this sadly all too prominent and worthy cause, the link is: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=CressidaJones 

  

This blog is in association with www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training.

The Isle of Skye in November is no place to go for a tan, but it’s great if you’re shooting a commercial for Welly boots!

On Tuesday last a car arrived at 6am, and I was whisked to Gatwick for a flight to Inverness, and thence across Scotland to the land of Flora Macdonald.  We shot in a mix of sparkling sunshine and driving sleet – but it was a really enjoyable gig – a stunning location, a great production team and a wondrous hotel. Needless to say, I couldn’t resist clicking away.

The hotel is the Kinloch Lodge. It’s run by famous cookery expert – and wife to the High Chief of the Clan – Claire MacDonald.  The rooms, the views, and above all the food are to die for.  I felt just a slight pang of nostalgia for my youthful days as an actor. Working on a good project with a good director and supportive producer, and a skilled team who know how to mix work and fun – there are worse ways to earn a crust. The product we were creating the ad. for is very respectable too – nay, posh, Hunters being the bee’s knees when it comes to Wellies.  


This picture is of me in character as Old Tom – note the extremely Celtic beard – and you will observe that Tom has a finely-tuned sense of good footwear.

The 40-second story features the local plumber (Leo Boyle) and Tom the Crofter (me) in an exchange about the joys of Christmas – dramatic stuff, with a surprise finish. Look out for it – it’s shot by an expert director, Simon Aboud, who has lots of impressive credits, not least the tantalising promotion for Paul McCartney’s song “Queenie-Eye”, which has just accumulated more than 2 million hits on YouTube.

Leaving behind my heady 40 seconds of stardom in Scotland,  I’ve been back checking what’s afoot onstage in London. If you’re coming into London in the next few weeks and need cheering up after battling through Oxford St, or Brent Cross, or Westfield – all of which are already HEAVING with Christmas shoppers, be warned – then head straightway to the St James’s Theatre in Victoria, and/or to the Duke of Yorks in St Martin’s Lane.

There are worries about the future of the St James Theatre – it’s only been functioning in its current form for a year or so, and already there are rumours that its owners may want to offer it for conferences and such rather than shows. This would be a huge pity, as the director David Gilmour and his team have brought us some great work, and the place has become a welcome and welcoming off-West End venue. One problem has been that it’s not that easy to find, so when you go to see the latest piece, the way to get there is to walk from Victoria Station along Victoria St towards the House of Parliament, and turn LEFT opposite Westminster Cathedral (the red-brick Cathedral, not the Abbey) and walk up between the glistening new plate-glass walls of Cathedral Walk.

Your journey will be well-rewarded by “The Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” by Sarah Ruhl. The play was first done in New York, and this UK production received great reviews earlier this year at the Ustinov Studio, Bath Theatre Royal. Sarah Ruhl is a seriously good writer, and it’s a fine piece, mingling terrific comedy with shrewd observation and comment. Think George Bernard Shaw at his best – his very best – dealing with the impact of the invention of the electric vibrator on polite late nineteenth century western society – in a beautifully-designed (by Simon Kenny) skilfully-directed (by Laurence Boswell) production. Great pace, smashing acting all round – lots and lots of laughs, with touching and reflective passages – Madeline Appiah is very moving as an exploited wet-nurse. 


Our Radagrad Edward Bennett (fresh from touring the world in “One man Two Guv’nors”) does a predictably brilliant turn as a wayward libertine painter getting what can only be called a horizontal comeuppance…

Meanwhile along the way, just north of Trafalgar Square, three more Radagrads are creating a sensation in “Jeeves and Wooster: Perfect Nonsense”. Ed Bennett tells me he was involved in showcasing early drafts of the clever adaptation by Robert and David Goodale, but was told he couldn’t be in it because he isn’t (yet) an above-the-title commercial “name”.    

  Fair enough, in the West End you need names to sell tickets, and when you’ve got Matthew MacFadyen as Jeeves and Steve Mangan as Bertie (both grads from my early days at Gower St) you’re going to sell lots.

To be frank these performances  knock television memories of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie into the proverbial cocked hat. The spirit they embody is much nearer the vintage black-and-while 1960s TV adaptation starring Iain Carmichael and Dennis Price, but they make it very much their own. They are supported by equally brilliant work by Mark Hadfield. He plays Bertie Wooster’s aunt’s butler Seppings, who in turn shares playing all the other characters with Matthew’s Jeeves.  Hats off to them all, and to the brilliance of director Sean Foley.

Winter is descending, the horrors of Christmas shopping are mounting. Take comfort. Go to the theatre. Go enjoy the vibrations in Victoria, and the sheer joy of invention on display in St Martin’s Lane.

STOP PRESS: Let’s hear it for Hull! Bingo! The city where I was a child and a teenager, the city where I had my first fateful job, stepping through the stage door of the New Theatre…..City of Culture now – such a journey since Philip Larkin wrote his great poem “Here” – look it up by clicking on this link:

http://modernkicks.typepad.com/modern_kicks/2005/01/nothing_to_be_s.html

This blog is in association with www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training.

Is this the fairest pie-shop of them all? Manze’s Walthamstow eel pie and mash emporium is but a few hundred yards from my front door, but I had no idea of its new Listed Building status until my friend Townsend told me on Thursday – in an email from Wellington New Zealand! He’d picked up a report in the on-line “Guardian”. A key figure in this encouraging event has been the English Heritage designation director, Roger Bowdler. Could he be, I wondered, a descendant of Dr Thomas Bowdler, who in 1807 published the famous “Family Shakespeare”. The best of the Bard without the rude bits, to be read “without incurring the danger of being hurt with any indelicacy of expression”? A tradition of meddling with us even today as Baron Fellowes takes time off from “Downton” to “modernise” bits of Romeo and Juliet. Anyway, let’s hear it for Mr Bowdler of English Heritage, who has redeemed the family name with a fine act of preservation. Walthamstow also made news this week when Grayson Perry said in one of his Reith lectures he was moving his studio away from E17 now it’s becoming gentrified and fashionable…steady on – Hoe Street’s got a way to go before it threatens Sloane Avenue…

There’s so much input into our drama these days from Scandinavia – those brilliant TV series – “The Bridge”, “The Killing”, the matchless “Borgen” (due back in January, can’t wait) – and now we have a rash of Nordic stage plays. 

Norwegian Henrik Ibsen was a late nineteenth century master, switching on the light for hundred of modern writers from Shaw to Mamet and Ravenhill, his plays expertly combining shrewd social insight with wit, style and vision. Within the last year or so we’ve had an elegant if somewhat unbalanced “Hedda Gabler” at the Old Vic, and a slightly hectic Young Vic “A Doll’s House” – currently back in the West End. 

Now in and out of London you have a choice of two “Ghosts”, one adapted and directed by Stephen Unwin for English Touring Theatre starring Diana Quick, the other at the Almeida in Islington. This is Richard Eyre’s production of his own adaptation, starring Lesley Manville, which I saw last week with the young Americans. It looks stunning – designed by Tim Hatley, lit by Peter Mumford. Superb acting from a fine cast, though alas the highly-charged closing sequence when Oswald succumbs to a ghastly brain-eating disease in the presence of his distraught mother failed to take me along. Desperate, high emotion is always tricky to nail, and the most excellent of actors need delicate steering to retain credibility.

I wonder how the touring version is handling it? Has anybody out there caught it?

I suspect that for some reason it’s more difficult to suspend the audience’s disbelief when you’re acting strong emotions in costume and dialogue from another era. (The reason for so many confusing, ill-thought-through “contemporary ” productions of Shakespeare?) No such problems in “Scenes from a Marriage” at the St James’s Theatre, where Trevor Nunn creates a stage version of a famous movie by the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, in an adaptation by Joanna Murray-Smith.


Olivia Williams with Mark Bazeley
Photo: Evening Standard                                   

The script produces exactly what it says on the tin. If any of you have ever been in an intense, long-term relationship, prepare to look into a mirror being held up relentlessly to nature. The script, the directing and the acting – especially from Olivia Williams – grab you and won’t let go. It’s raw, enthralling and cathartic. I went with Andrew Burt, who was on his second visit. I absolutely loved it, but I don’t think I could take it all over again – I’ve lived through several intense long-term relationships….But go, if you cherish fine theatre, just go. There’s a link to the trailer at the bottom of the page.

The latest excursion this week has been to the Menier Chocolate Factory in glittering Southwark, nestling beneath the Shard. This was a play called “The Lyons”. I hadn’t read the reviews, I just picked up on the title and the name of the main character, and had assumed it was inspired by a radio sitcom only people of my advanced years will remember called “Life with the Lyons” starring Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, written by Bob Block, who went on to script a TV sitcom I was in. Anyway, it’s nothing of the kind. It’s an abrasive comedy about a dysfunctional New York Jewish family – sort of Neil Simon without a trace of sentimentality, if you can imagine that. Strong, spikey work from Nicholas Day, Isla Blair and Tom Ellis.

A great thing about this year has been that we’re actually having seasons. The much advertised Great Storm turned out to be a bit patchy and short-lived, but it marked well the time of year – it would have cheered the poet Shelley no end.

On the day of the storm I took these shots at 6.45 a.m. from my bedroom window. Please supply your own sound-effects.

The St James’s Theatre is currently my favourite London venue – it has the welcoming air of one of the great regional reps, in the days when we had lots of great regional reps. Here’s the link to the trailer:  

http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/scenes-from-a-marriage/#prettyPhoto/6/

I’m off to the Isle of Skye to film a commercial for Wellington boots, for which I am growing a beard….I will report back, possibly with photos…

This blog comes to you courtesy of www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk. If you need help with voice-training, presentation preparation, getting ready for an audition or access to classes and advice from some of the best trainers in the UK, just click on the link.

  

This blog is in association with www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training.

One of the many advantages of living on the north-easterly fringes of London is that we still have our local workhouse. Built to provide unpaid work for the dispossessed in return for shelter, it’s now the Vestry House Museum, and reflects the rich history of Waltham Forest. Its fascinating collection complements well the displays at nearby William Morris House, the current national Museum of theYear.

I went last night to the launch of the latest Vestry House exhibition, celebrating the toy factories which flourished here in the early and middle years of the last century – including for instance the one creating the first “Matchbox” series of model cars. This was long before making such things migrated to the Far East, but it’s salutary to note the pay-rates for the (mostly female) factory workers in the late forties. The rate was fourpence and hour, which for a 40-hour week would work out at 13s 4d, or roughly 69p. It’s always tricky to make comparisons of earnings between eras, but that computes out at about £19.50 a week in today’s money. I wonder how that compares with the pay for someone currently making toys in a factory in China?

A related activity was the merchandise associated with the media hit shows of the day, which usually meant movies, or more often radio productions. One such hit was the wild west drama “Riders of the Range”,which also had a wide readership – including me at the age of seven or thereabouts – on the back pages of the famous “Eagle” comic. It was the creation of the remarkable Charles Chilton, who left us, aged 95, in January of this year. Another sensational radio project of his was “Journey into Space” – so imaginative, often really scary. Radio at its best is a miles more potent story-teller than television. Chilton also wrote/compiled the radio show which became “Oh What a Lovely War”, staged by Joan Littlewood, filmed by Richard Attenborough, and about to be revived in the West End. I loved the pictures of the actors in the radio studio performing “Riders of the Range” in costume….

Another creative power-house was Clare Venables, a widely-loved and admired director (including a spell in charge of the Sheffield Crucible) with whom I studied at Manchester University, and who died of cancer just 10 years ago. There was a gathering at the Young Vic this week in her memory, and it was lovely to see there a few of the Manchester survivors – actors Joanna Tope and Terry Wilton, and marketing director Tony Barlow. Back home afterwards I rummaged in the photo-archive.  A high spot of our student years was taking Stephen Joseph’s production of John Whiting’s play “The Devils” to the international festival at Parma. Our Professor, Hugh Hunt, had arranged for us to use the costumes from the original RSC production, and here is Clare in Dorothy Tutin’s costume as Sister Jeanne, and Terry as Father Grandier in the outfit created for Richard Johnson. 

 
  (The shoulder in the third picture belongs to me, in a costume created for Max Adrian) 

And so back to the happy grind of playgoing in London with my troupe of alert and eager Americans. At Hampstead it’s a treat to see Anthony Sher perfectly cast – and in fine form – as Sigmund Freud in “Hysteria”. There’s startling work in support from Adrain Schiller, and the brilliant Lydia Wilson, who came through the training at RADA since my time in charge but wow, she’s good! 

The show is written and directed by Terry Johnson, the only writer apart from Tom Stoppard who could have pulled off a play about a Jewish psycho-analyst in the dark years of the 1930s in the form of a Whitehall farce. Script, design and performances are all staged with great pace and panache – London theatre at its most apposite.

And then, luckily for us my tireless NYU colleague Mary Jane Walsh had managed to grab – some months ago – tickets for the National transfer at the Apollo, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”. It’s a fearsomely difficult show to get into, and when you do it’s not hard to see why: it has more impact than anything I’ve seen this year. 

Marianne Elliot as director steers an immaculate cast, and an outstanding technical and design team. The work incorporates choreography by Scott Graham and Steve Hogget, who together founded Frantic Assembly.  

This story, presented with all that high-octane technical and artistic expertise, makes as strong a case as could be for public subsidy. I hadn’t read the book, which deals with a young boy coping with Asperger’s Syndrome, but those who have tell me it’s a sharp, clear adaptation. Only with somewhere like the National taking the initial risk could shows like this and “Warhorse” see the light of day – and of course when they hit the commercial jackpot they ease the need for big subsidy increases in these days of government cuts. Over a third of the NT’s income last year came from national and international commercial collaborations.

Stepping down from the soap-box, a couple of book plugs. I caught up over supper last week with my former RADA colleague Dee Cannon, whose classes de-mystify the all-too-enduring nonsense around Stanislavsky’s analysis of actor-training, and who has an excellent book full of useful thoughts and exercises – recommended as a complement to what we offer at TYA.

A few days after seeing “Curious Incident” Scott Graham came along to talk with the NYU Tisch students about his work on the show, and about Frantic Assembly. Scott‘s refreshingly non-theatrical – he started out as a serious football-player before tacking neatly into physical theatre – and he too has a resourceful book, also strongly recommended. There were bits of “Curious Incident” when I was moved to tears, as I was last year at Hammersmithby the wondrous Frantic Assembly production of Abi Morgan’s “Lovesong”.

A recording of this show, I’m delighted to report, is available at http://www.digitaltheatre.com/production/details/lovesong/play 

This blog comes to you courtesy of www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk. If you need help with voice-training, presentation preparation, getting ready for an audition or access to classes and advice from some of the best trainers in the UK, just click on the link.