Radcliffe leads the way in ITV1’s dramatic autumn schedule

ITV1 is pinning its hopes on a number of new dramas to secure ratings in its autumn schedule, including a one-off about Rudyard Kipling’s son.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will join Kim Cattrall, Carey Mulligan in My Boy Jack, an Ecosse Films production, which tells the story of how Kipling used his influence to get his 17-year-old son in the Irish Guards.

Other dramas in the channel’s autumn schedule are Sold, a comedy-drama set in an estate agents starring Kris Marshall and Anthony Head, and A Room With A View, featuring real-life father and son, Timothy and Rafe Spall.

Elsewhere in the line-up, Frankenstein gets reworked with Dr Victor Frankenstein reborn as a 21st century female biologist and Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop gets brought to life with a cast featuring Derek Jacobi and Toby Jones.

Entertainment shows include a new series of The X Factor, with new judge Dannii Minogue and Grease is the Word’s Brian Friedman joining as the show’s creative director.

Pop star Elton John also features in the line-up, with a programme about his life and Harry Potter author J K Rowling shares her experiences writing the last book in the series with a documentary that follows her over a year.

FASHION: COSTUME DRAMAS

Carey Mulligan, 20, and Emma Williams, 22, know a thing or two about this seasons biggest trend, having lived and breathed Victoriana thanks to their starring roles in Bleak House, the BBCs new period drama.

You get quite strict about your corset its like, Come on, tighter, tighter, says Carey, who plays Ada Clare. I had this gorgeous dress for a wedding scene, but it was ridiculously small. I nearly fainted, my corset was so tight. I wore it for eight hours, breathing really slowly so I wouldnt fall over. Im sure I cracked a rib that day.

Emma, who plays Rosa, the maid to X Files star Gillian Andersons character, Lady Dedlock, also suffered in the name of her art. I had original Victorian corsets, so they were really heavy. I spent half the day crouching down to take the weight off my back, she says. But you do get addicted to them. I might start wearing one round the house, doing the cleaning marigolds and a corset. Im a classy girl, me.

So how was working with the series big-name stars? God, it was terrifying, especially when I heard people like Charles Dance were in it, says Carey. I couldnt really believe I was in a show with all these people. I remember just looking around, thinking, Theres Alistair McGowan, and theres Johnny Vegas. A lot of them look like Dickens characters, theyve got amazing faces.

Emma, meanwhile, worked very closely with Gillian Anderson. She could afford to be a diva, but shes lovely. The first thing she said to me was, Why are all my girls so tall? Im 5ft 7in and shes tiny. But she looks stunning, even without make-up.

As part of Rosas duties, Emma had to style Gillians hair on camera. She had this amazing wig. Im putting combs through it, thinking, Please dont let me ruin it, remembers Emma. Gillian thought mine was a wig, too, but it was my own. One time, she thought I had a hair loose, so she grabbed it and ended up pulling a big chunk out of my head.

Outside Bleak House, both girls admit they lack a little in the style department. My wardrobe is a disaster, laughs Emma. I once went out in wide purple chiffon silk pants with a matching vest top. I was a mass of mauve. Careys no better. When I was 11, I went to a disco wearing a shiny purple shirt with green flares and silver wedge shoes. I wasnt cool, and Im still not.

Despite being no strangers to fashion faux pas, both girls love shopping. Im very excited about winter because I love jackets and coats, says Carey. Ive got so many I cant fit them into my flat.

Emma agrees. My favourite thing is a floor-length cream wool coat, flecked with black fake fur and a huge black furry collar. A woman once started shouting at me for wearing fur. Im like What animal looks like this? A badger with highlights?

Bleak House is on BBC1, Fridays, 8.30pm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20051030/ai_n15815752/print

From Russia, with love

The director Ian Rickson has decided that the best way to perform Chekhov's The Seagull at the Royal Court is to give his cast a crash course in the art of being Russian.

Rickson, who is staging his last play as the theatre's artistic director, took his leading lady Kristin Scott Thomas - who will play the actress Arkadina - to Moscow so she could scope out the city and meet Russian actors.

"It's like us with Shakespeare," Rickson said. "They've got Chekhov in their souls."

Rickson also believes "Chekhov is best when it's performed from the gut".

To that end, he's encouraged his Royal Court company to soak up Russian culture through literature, art and food (avoiding any sushi bars, of course).

Mackenzie Crook has come straight from the third episode of the Pirates Of The Caribbean films to play Konstantin, Arkadina's son, a troubled soul who wants to write.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the experienced novelist Trigorin, Arkadina's younger son. Ejiofor, who is excused from Russian indoctrination for a couple of days so he can attend Monday night's Golden Globes ceremony in Beverly Hills, where he's nominated in the best comedy actor category for his role in the film Kinky Boots, also woos the ingenue Nina, played by Carey Mulligan.

"Ian keeps calling me the Golden Child because Nina's chasing fame in the pursuit of glory," Ms Mulligan told me.

Rickson is convinced audiences will see parallels between Nina's character and today's obsession with celebrity.

Conversely, however, from Ejiofor's and Crook's points of view, the play is all about another kind of obsession - writing.

Both actors met playwrights to get some idea of the psychological processes a dramatist endures.

And Christopher Hampton, a playwright long associated with the Royal Court, was on hand to explain the background to his adaptation of The Seagull, which begins performances at the Royal Court on January 18.

The wise and brilliant actress Denise Black, who plays Polina, summed up the play succinctly. "Life does hurt," she said, and then laughed. "Hurt and laughter," she added. And that's The Seagull.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/bazbamigboye.html?in_article_id=428380&in_page_id=1794

Who'll be the stars of the arts in 2007?

Our critics introduce the names to watch out for over the next 12 months - the ones you won't have heard of before, the ones that you'll suddenly see everywhere – and the one the critics will love best in 2007...

THEATRE

Carey Mulligan
When Carey Mulligan learned that she was to be Nina, "the part that's completely obsessed me", in the Royal Court's forthcoming, star-studded production of The Seagull, the excited 21-year-old did herself an injury with some curling tongs. Mulligan's blonde tresses will be familiar from juicy parts on television (Bleak House, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard); now live fame beckons.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/events/article-23380155-details/Who'll+be+the+stars+of+the+arts+in+2007/article.do

Billie's West End debut back on

Spotlight on stand-ins as star's illness nearly turns show into a no-show

Last updated at 17:33pm on 7th March 2007

It is the hottest show in town - the real-life rollercoaster drama of Billie Piper's West End debut.

Less than two days ago she came out of the theatre where she is due to appear in Treats to announce: "I'm doing really well."

Then the troubled actress - who has been seen weeping in public with ex-husband Chris Evans - was forced to pull out of a preview performance of Christopher Hampton's play because of illness.

But today doctors gave the 24-year-old the go-ahead for tonight's preview at the Garrick Theatre. The play is due to open tomorrow, a week later than originally planned.

Spokesman Ewan Thomson said: "Billie was delighted to hear she is allowed back tonight. She hates letting people down and - fingers crossed - she will be okay for Thursday's opening night."

Piper is the latest in a line of West End stars who have pulled out of performances because of illness.

Connie Fisher was ordered to take a two-week break from playing Maria in The Sound Of Music to rest her strained vocal cords. Sophie Bould is standing in.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is offering to exchange tickets for those who have booked for performances while star Fisher is off sick - but seats for the popular show may not be available until November.

Meanwhile Richard Griffiths, in Equus as a psychiatrist treating Daniel Radcliffe, has the flu.

Although illness is unavoidable, audience disappointment at the absence of star performers has often been exacerbated by understudies' apparent lack of familiarity with their roles.

When Griffiths was replaced by Colin Haigh in last Friday's performance, he seemed to be reading the script from a notebook. A spokesman said: "Within the psychiatrist's manual he had a reminder of some of the lines.

"After all, the play had only been open two days. You know how they change plays right up to the first night."

Fisher's absence from The Sound Of Music coincides with a two-week break for co-star Lesley Garrett, who missed a performance a fortnight ago because of illness.

The Royal Court, staging The Seagull starring Kristin Scott Thomas, does not have understudies on financial grounds.

When Carey Mulligan, who plays Nina, fell ill with appendicitis last month, the theatre had to find a stand-in at the last minute. "We were fortunate enough that Jodie Whittaker was available," said a spokesman.

"She obviously is a brilliant actress and she stepped in and did the show with a script in hand." But Whittaker could only do two performances and another actress, Anna Madeley, had to take over until Mulligan was well enough to return.

Director Harry Burton once spent a year as "walking cover" for the part of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.

He said: "You could almost hear the murmur behind the curtain when they make the announcement that the part of Henry Higgins will be played by Harry Burton - 'Who the bloody hell is he?'

"But sometimes it is a bit of a thrill for the audience, because they think they are witnessing a star being born." The productionwas infamous for the many absences of former EastEnders star Martine McCutcheon.

Burton said: " Martine brought in an interesting East End audience - none of whom took kindly to being told she was not appearing."

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=440753&in_page_id=1773

The Hollywood Reporter review of Northanger Abbey

By Ray Bennett

Mar 23, 2007

This mines Jane Austen's first-written but last-published novel to find purest nuggets of wit, romance and social satire.

9-11 p.m., Sunday, March 25
ITV1 (U.K.)

LONDON -- ITV's season of new Jane Austen films hits full stride with a wonderfully evocative version of "Northanger Abbey" written with flair and imagination by Andrew Davies, adding to his list of fine credits including "Bleak House," "Tipping the Velvet" and "Bridget Jones's Diary."

Capturing vividly the flush and wonder of adolescence, the film mines Austen's first-written but last-published novel to find purest nuggets of wit, romance and social satire. The story's 18th-century heroine, Catherine Morland, has a fevered imagination and Davies draws on Austen's droll illustrations of it to create scenes of gothic adventure.

This is Austen for those who imagine wrongly that her novels are dry and dainty. There's lust and hunger in these characters and Davies, along with director Jon Jones ("A Very Social Secretary," "Archangel"), gives them full rein while never betraying the social straightjackets of the time.

A voice-over using Austen's words sets the scene as Davies matches the author for economy in showing Catherine's growth from a plain and awkward child to a smart and pretty teenager.

Felicity Jones is all wide eyes and passionate heart as the young woman who seeks to be a heroine in her own love story if she could ever find the right hero. Like all Austen characters, her hardworking father (Gerry O'Brien) and gentle mother (Julia Dearden) know that money is more important than romance, however, so they are happy for Catherine to accept an invitation from the better-off Allens to live with them in Bath.

Mr. Allen (Desmond Barrit) has a decent living but Mrs. Allen (Sylvestra Le Touzel) is easily impressed by the Bath elite and only too aware that she lacks acquaintance with any of them. Catherine's personable brother James (Hugh O'Connor), however, has won the attentions of the young women in the Thorpe family and their eldest, Isabella (Carey Mulligan), seeks to make Catherine her best friend.

Meanwhile, the impressionable girl has become enamored of an affable snob named Henry Tilney (J.J. Field) and his sweet-natured sister Eleanor (Catherine Walker). Into the mix comes Isabella's opportunist brother John (William Beck) and Henry's selfish brother Captain Frederick Tilney (Mark Dymond).

Hovering above all the young people and key to their fate is Henry's father, General Tilney (Liam Cunningham) for whom the state of marriage is a financial contract and nothing but.

Catherine is soon whisked off to the Tilney home, the magnificent but spooky Northanger Abbey, where the teenager's appetite for tales of ghoulies and ghosties brings about the expected series of Austen misunderstandings.

Filmed on location in Ireland, with Lismore Castle standing in for Northanger, the film is shot beautifully by Ciaran Tanham while composer Charlie Mole's score adds to the quickening pace of Catherine's fantasies.

Mulligan as the over-confident but naive Isabella and Walker as the charmingly secure Eleanor make convincing opposites while Field has an offhand but winning charm as Henry. At the center of it all, Jones is captivating as breathless adventuress, gullible innocent and an Austen heroine hungry for life.

Woldingham's Drama Star

Woldingham past pupil Carey Mulligan stars in the recently released Working Title 'Pride & Prejudice' film, alongside Keira Knightley, Dame Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland, shortly after leaving Woldingham.

carey at Oxted cinema with head of drama Judith Brown and current 6th form girls

Carey did not forget her teachers and old school friends when she recently attended a viewing of the film at Oxted cinema with Head of Drama Judith Brown and members of the current Sixth Form.

In an article in the Caterham and District Advertiser, the young star said that she believes her love for the stage and screen was first kindled at Woldingham. 'Everyone was so encouraging. You could do anything you wanted to, although you had to take it seriously.'

Her amazing success has come as no surprise to her former drama teacher Judith Brown. She said 'We are all so proud of Carey and everything she has achieved in her career since leaving Woldingham School. We always knew she was someone special. Not only is she talented but she also has the right temperament and determination to succeed in what is a very difficult profession.'

Watch out for this budding star in the forthcoming TV adaptation of Bleak House.

Why Carey's delighted to be an orphan

As Andrew Davies' adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel Bleak House nears its dramatic denouement, Carey Mulligan is hugely enjoying the role of Ada Clare.

Ada is an orphan and a ward of court whose fortunes are tied up in the protracted case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She meets and falls in love with fellow orphan Richard Carstone (Patrick Kennedy) and ends up at Bleak House, taken in by their generous and caring guardian, John Jarndyce (Denis Lawson). "I don't think that Ada has encountered many men before," explains 20-year-old Carey. "I never had it in my head that she did, anyway. But when someone is thrust into your life and you see them every day, and you have to live with them, it's probably inevitable they will get on well with each other."

"I went to boarding school and you become really good friends with people within about a week, because you have to as you're living with them," says Carey. "Richard and Ada meet before they meet Esther (the heroine of the story who is employed as a companion to Ada), played by Anna Maxwell Martin.

"They give each other all these sideways glances in the first episode. I think it was just instant."

Ada falls in love with Richard but slowly becomes frustrated by his obsession with the Jarndyce lawsuit. "It's really hard, because she has this complete loyalty to Richard and he's the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with," says Carey.

"When they ask Jarndyce if they can get married, he says no. Part of Ada is really still loyal to Jarndyce, because obviously he's looking after her and she's living with him, but part of her is so in love with Richard and she really does want to get married. It's horrible, though," she says.

"Does she agree with Jarndyce and wait to get married, or does she fight with Richard? She has to make all these decisions as to who she is most loyal to."

Bleak House is Carey's first major TV role and she admits to finding it all a little daunting.

"I was really terrified. But when I got into it, it was OK," she smiles.

"There are so many storylines, though, that I didn't even get to meet a quarter of the cast. I auditioned twice for the role but had to go back again, as the tape hadn't worked in my second audition and they didn't get any of it on camera,"

Carey, who appeared in Forty Winks at the Royal Court Theatre last year and plays Kitty Bennett in the 2005 film version of Pride And Prejudice, can also be seen in the forthcoming drama Trial And Retribution X, due to air in 2006.

She was unfamiliar with much of Dickens' work before she became involved with Bleak House, but she thoroughly enjoyed the filming.

"The beginning is really beautiful. My mum read the novel and just couldn't stop," laughs Carey.

"The thing I noticed about it is that it seems to be really fast- moving. With a lot of costume dramas, you sit there and see a sweeping shot of a beautiful house, but it's like: 'What's happening with the story?' But this adaptation is all really quick. It's really cool."

• Bleak House, BBC One, Thursday, 8pm, and Friday, 8.30pm

This article: http://living.scotsman.com/tv.cfm?id=2345752005

Last updated: 03-Dec-05 14:09 BST

The Stage Review of Doctor Who - Blink

Apologies for the late arrival of our weekly Doctor Who review. I’ve only just emerged from under the duvet after Blink scared the living daylights out of me.

Die-hards will always tell you that Doctor Who is such a great idea because it’s such a flexible format, can go anywhere in time and space, can give us an urban techno-thriller one week, silly alien invasion the next, with a tear-jerking romance not far behind. It’s a cliché because it’s true. The format is so loose and broad that we can even have episodes that barely feature the two leads at all, while still managing to feel so much like Doctor Who it hurts (in a good way).

Blink is Stephen Moffat’s third story for Doctor Who on the telly, having given us scary boys in gasmasks, girls in fireplaces, and now we have terrifying statues. Moffat, more than any other writer, takes chances with his Who writing, loosening a nut here, tightening a bolt there, to do things that keep the Doctor Who structure intact while encouraging us to look at it in a different light.

When Sally Sparrow explores an abandoned house of a very spooky variety, she is drawn into a story that spans across time. She discovers a message from the Doctor behind some wallpaper, advising her to duck, which she does, just in time. Later, she drags flatmate Kathy back there to make sure she didn’t imagine the whole thing. Some spooky wandering around later, during which Sally takes delivery of a mysterious package, Kathy disappears… But then our plot thickens even further, as the package turns out to be from Kathy, who ended up back in time and lived a full and happy life until her death. There’s something screwy going on, and I wouldn’t be at all be surprised if it had something to do with that really scary looking statue of a weeping angel… And when Sally gets home, why is the Doctor speaking to her from a DVD extra?

Once again, Doctor Who serves up some seriously good television thanks to a clever script that zings along with Moffat’s trademark dialogue and some great performances from a cast who are doing Doctor Who without the Doctor. Carey Mulligan is so thoroughly likeable as Sally that you long to give her a hug and take her out for coffee. She’d make a great companion for the Doctor should he have need of a new one in the future (although the one he’s got is working out just fine, thank you…). I wanted to see more of Cutting It’s Lucy Gaskell as Kathy (probably because I unashamedly fancied her more than Sally), but it’s down to Moffat’s writing that he can sketch characters so deeply with only a handful of scenes to do it in.

And then there’s the Weeping Angels, a race of aliens who can only move when nobody’s looking at them – so in other words, don’t blink. Ever. As soon as you do, you’re dead… And if they get you, you’re blasted back in time, the potential energy of your future absorbed by the angels. And that’s what happened to the Doctor and Martha, who ended up in 1969, cut off from the TARDIS.

With the Angels, we probably have Doctor Who’s most pant-wettingly scary monsters of all time, and their very concept has you questioning the inner workings of the writer’s mind. This is quickly followed by the sad realisation that you haven’t a hope in hell of ever being that clever, even if you spent the rest of your life trying.

With Blink, we have what has become known in fan circles (of which I obviously know nothing about) as the ‘Doctor-lite’ episode. It’s a thumbnail heading to denote that two filming blocks are ongoing, and as David Tennant and Freema Agyeman can’t be in two places at once, one episode has to be light on scenes for them. Without this, the shoot would go beyond the nine months it currently spans, so it’s a logistical necessary so the leads don’t go doolally-tap from over-work.

Last year we were given the Peter Kay-starring Love and Monsters, which was a love it or loath it affair in its tricksiness. Where Blink scores over Love and Monsters is managing to have an episode without the Doctor and Martha, yet which manages to give them so much presence in the narrative for this to still feel deliciously Who-ey. This also gives us a chance to see just how well Tennant and Agyeman really do work together. When they do pop up, it feels so natural, that it’s always been the Doctor and Martha. Personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Blink continues the high-quality run of episodes we’ve had from this third series of Doctor Who, and it easily ranks as one of the best (although I still favour Moffat’s The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances from his three stories to date). And that stridently confident ending will strike fear into the hearts of children for years to come, going down in Doctor Who lore as ‘The One with the Bloody Scary Statues’.

Just as it should do…

Published Tuesday 12 June 2007 at 16:59 by Mark Wright

http://www.thestage.co.uk/tvtoday/2007/06/doctor_who_310_blink.php

Actress Carey's pride and joy

AN ASPIRING actress who has been catapulted to stardom with a role in the new Pride and Prejudice film says she owes her success to her old school.

Carey Mulligan plays the giggly Kitty Bennett alongside Keira Knightley, Dame Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland, in the latest film version of Jane Austen's famous novel.

And the young star believes her love for the stage and screen was first kindled at Woldingham School.

The 20-year-old said: "I had wanted to act for a really long time, but other schools I had been to did not have such good drama departments.

"Everyone was so encouraging. You could do anything you wanted to, although you had to take it seriously. If you missed rehearsals, you were out."

Carey was thrilled when she got the job of theatre prefect and made sure she spent every moment working in the department, helping out with workshops for younger students and putting on productions.

Now her hard work has paid off and after a spell working in a pub worrying she might never make it as an actress, she got her big break.

Carey said: "I was on the train going to work when I got the call saying I had the part. I had to go and work at the pub that evening - I was pulling pints with a massive grin on my face."

Although she admits she was terrified when they first started filming, at Groombridge Place in Kent, she soon took to it like a duck to water.

Carey said: "We were like one big family. We took over the house. It was so much fun. Brenda Blethyn (Mrs Bennett) mummied us all - when we had days off she took us on day trips to a llama farm."

Since finishing the movie, the actress, who lives in Covent Garden, has been kept busy with a host of job offers, performing in Forty Winks at London's Royal Court Theatre and starring in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, which will be broadcast later this autumn.

But her amazing success has come as no surprise to her former drama teacher, Judith Brown.

She said: "We are all so proud of Carey and everything she has achieved in her career since leaving Woldingham School.

"We always knew she was someone special.

"Not only is she very talented but she also has the right temperament and determination to succeed in what is a very difficult profession."

Sep 23 2005

By Emily Attwood And Brian Haran