Judi Dench News

To launch the project today, two singles from  the album are being released: Rachel Portman’s prologue to A Tale of Two Cities featuring Judi Dench and White Lies’ prologue to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof featuring Amanda Seyfried, both of which are available now!

Hadley Fraser some while ago established himself as one of the most protean actors around: a talent equally at home both in big-name musicals (Les Mis, Young Frankenstein) and Shakespeare (playing Aufidius to Tom Hiddleston’s Coriolanus and Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale, alongside Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench). Now, with theatre in the capital kickstarting anew, Fraser is due to open Aug 11 at the Noel Coward Theatre in 2: 22 – A Ghost Story, which is that modern-day rarity – a stage thriller.

Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn was today awarded  the Critics Circle Award for Services to the Arts, the Critics Circle’s highest honour. Every year since 1988, the Critics’ Circle has voted for a single leading artist to receive an engraved crystal rose bowl in recognition of their distinguished contribution to the arts.

This hour-long play has had may incarnations, most notably in a 1979 ITV production, starring Richard Briers as 'A' and Dame Judi Dench, a Shaw Society vice-president, as 'Z'.

Mr and Mrs Pooter have just moved from Peckham to their new home in Holloway, much to the Mrs P's dismay. She tries her best to be “a dutiful wife” and he is the model Victorian husband. But are they, really? English writer Evelyn Waugh once described George and Weedon Grossmith’s novel The Diary of a Nobody as “the funniest book in the world”. The Pooters have gone on to have quite an onward life over the years and have finally landed at Jermyn Street Theatre in an effervescent revival of Keith Waterhouse’s Mr and Mrs Nobody.

The celebrated tenor Kim Begley made his Royal Opera House debut in 1983 and has since then established himself at the forefront of the repertoire, with credits ranging from Britten to Busoni, Wagner to Brett Dean's opera of Hamlet. In keeping wih Shakespeare, if not this time round with singing, Begley has joined a starry lineup of British opera world names to perform King Lear later this month at the Grange Festival for three performances - and we're talking the play in its full, unadultered majesty and not the opera, with Sit John Tomlinson as Lear, Thomas Allen as Gloucester, and Begley as the Fool, and many other notable names besides. As it happens, Begley cut his teeth as a performer some years back with the Royal Shakespeare Company and explains this return to his classical roots below. 

The Alpha Family has announced that they will have the honour of being the first West End production on the opening week of the iconic Royal Albert Hall. This will be Alpha’s third “Best of the West End” show, following their previous sell-outs at the Hall over the last three years.

It’s a month filled with music and masterful performances as BroadwayHD today announced their upcoming slate of titles joining the platform.  Starting July 1, celebrate Independence Day early with the patriotic classic and musical tour de force, Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring Academy Award Winner James Cagney.

The 60th anniversary production of Beckett's masterwork Happy Days, newly opened at west London's Riverside Studios, is indistinguishable from the keen eye of its director, Trevor Nunn, who across more than six decades has contributed many of the most significant (not to mention quite a few of the best) productions in my experience. We look back at a seismic career and select five productions for the ages.

Seeing both of these movies and comparing their teams has shown that Hollywood needs to let Broadway people work on movie musicals. There is an understanding that Broadway people have of musicals that Hollywood people don't. 

Olivier and Tony Award-winning Ian McDiarmid and Michael Grandage have collaborated to bring The Lemon Table to the stage for the first time. In McDiarmid's one man performance we encounter a spectrum of bitter-sweet pleasures, wild eccentricity and dark secrets.

SHAW2020 will present this knockabout, battle of the sexes by Bernard Shaw. Village Wooing is a charming two-hander where the characters are simply named 'A' and 'Z'.

Check out Glenda's interview with Josh O'Connor and watch highlights from her career!

The new production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, directed by Sean Mathias with Ian McKellen in an age-blind interpretation, is set to begin performances 21 June at Theatre Royal Windsor.

On Sunday 16 May The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama's Keep Creating Gala, featuring appearances from alumni including Riz Ahmed, Dame Judi Dench, Sonia Friedman, Michael Grandage, Jason Isaacs, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Toby Olié, Sir Tony Robinson, Catherine Tate and more, raised over £26,000 to support Central students impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. 

With years of cabaret experiences behind them, Barbara Bleier, Austin Pendleton, Barbara Maier Gustern and Paul Greenwood are taking to the 'net for their latest cabaret show, and Bleier has a lot to say about it.

Following the success of the live Q&A in November 2020 which raised over £300,000 for Acting for Others, Lockdown Theatre today announces they will be rescreening For One Knight Only in aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund and partner organisation, the Fleabag Support Fund.

No death of course is easy to absorb, especially one as premature and shocking as that of Helen McCrory, whose surrender to cancer late last week, age 52, came like the most brutal and sudden of thunderclaps. The announcement was made via Twitter on Friday by her husband, Damian Lewis, and I doubt I’m the only one who reacted with moist-eyed disbelief.

Olly Alexander's superstar-status graces new heights on 'Starstruck', an irresistible, instant-classic Years & Years anthem about human connection (and the cosmos). 'Starstruck', reveals Olly, 'came together one night at a studio in the countryside outside of London.

Olly Alexander's superstar-status graces new heights on 'Starstruck', an irresistible, instant-classic Years & Years anthem about human connection (and the cosmos). 'Starstruck', reveals Olly, 'came together one night at a studio in the countryside outside of London.'