Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Adds Two More Shows to Their AT HOME WITH... Series

Tonight, Thursday 20th August, sees the very first Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds brand-new online series, At Home With... in partnership with Theatre Tokens and sponsored by Theatre Royal Autumn Season Sponsor, Churchgates. The event, hosted on Zoom, will see celebrity pairings in conversation with each other from their own homes.

Tonight's event, at 7.30pm, features Downton Abbey's Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith Crawley) and her real-life pal Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley) as they chat about careers, life and whatever else takes their fancy! The conversation will be hosted by Theatre Royal's Artistic Director, Owen Calvert-Lyons and ticket-holders will have the chance to submit questions to the pair in advance.

Theatre Royal have now announced the next two At Home With...events.

On Wednesday 26 August star of stage and screen, Alex Jennings will be in conversation with Theatre Royal regular, Libby Purves, OBE. Imagine the backstage stories that these two must have!

Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Alex trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, after graduating from Warwick University. Alex really is theatre royalty whose credits include:

For National Theatre: Cocktail Sticks and Hymn, Collaborators, The Habit of Art, Present Laughter, Stuff Happens, His Girl Friday, The Winter's Tale, The Relapse, Albert Speer and My Fair Lady.

In the West End: Too Clever by Half, The Liar, The Wild Duck, The Importance of Being Earnest and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

For the RSC: Richard II, Oberon, Benedick, Peer Gynt and Hamlet.

For the English National Opera: Candide and My Fair Lady.

Television credits include:
Goldigger, A Very English Scandal, The Crown, Victoria, The Halcyon, Stan Lee's Lucky Man, Churchill's Secret, Foyle's War, Silk, Castles in the Sky, Being Human, Lewis, We'll Take Manhattan, Whitechapel, Marple, Hancock and Joan, Cranford, The State Within, Spooks, Riot at the Rite, Poirot, Bad Blood, Ashenden, Hard Times, Inspector Morse, and Smiley's People.

Film credits:

Lady In The Van, The Queen, Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason, Denial,
Alex performed in Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Love Gala in 2018 and on stage with Lucy Parham just last year.

Libby Purves, OBE, is a regular host of Theatre Royal 'An Evening with...' events, most recently a sell-out evening with Sir Derek Jacobi.
The first female presenter on Radio 4 from 1978-1981, radio presenter, journalist and author, Libby Purves started work as a BBC technical trainee. As well as being a Radio 4 presenter she is a writer and columnist for The Times, as well as other magazines. She was chief theatre critic at The Times from 2010 -2013 and is an independent online theatre reviewer at www.theatrecat.com. Libby has written 12 novels and her various non-fiction books include How Not To Be A Good Mother and Nature's Masterpiece.

Thursday 3 September will see the multi-talented Christopher Biggins having a good old chin wag with his gal pal Lesley Joseph, best known for her role as Dorian Green in Birds of a Feather.

Christopher Biggins hosted Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds The Love Gala in 2018. From Porridge to I'm A Celebrity, Christopher Biggins has graced our screens for over thirty years. This hugely talented actor, humourist, writer, general raconteur and popular Pantomime Dame counts the world's most glamorous stars as his best friends and brings his own inimitable sense of humour and warmth to any production. Christopher appeared on ITV's primetime hit show Gone to Pot, Channel 5's Five Celebrities Go To Lapland, Celebrity 100% Hotter and is a regular on The Wright Stuff. Biggins was a regular panellist on BBC2's Debatable, was a special guest on ITV1's Live at The Palladium, won thousands for charity on DAVE's Celebrity Storage Hunters and voiced Channel 5 panel show It's Not Me It's You. Christopher won over a whole new audience when he was crowned King Of The Jungle after winning series 7 of the hit ITV1 show, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here but his career began many years earlier.

Biggins started his training at Salisbury Repertory Theatre and later at Bristol Old Vic as a prelude to his first West End appearance - creating the role of Head Jumbly in The Owl and The Pussycat Went to Sea. He has also taken part in a successful run of The Play What I Wrote directed by Kenneth Brannagh and is a regular guest as The Narrator in the National Tour of The Rocky Horror Show. Christopher has also managed to fit in a year with The Royal Shakespeare Company appearing in London Assurance with Judi Dench and Donald Sinden. Other theatre work includes a National tour of Side by Side by Sondheim, Beyond The Fringe, A Touch of Spring and more recently Cluedo and On Approval. In the summer of 1990 Christopher played and sang the role of Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar at London's Barbican Theatre.

Lesley Joseph is new to Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds so we're very excited to have her on board.

Lesley Diana Joseph (born 14 October 1945) is an English actress and broadcaster, best known for playing Dorien Green in the television sitcom Birds of a Feather from 1989 to 1998, and again from 2014 to 2017. Other television credits include Absurd Person Singular (1985) and Night and Day (2001-2003). Her stage roles include UK touring productions of Thoroughly Modern Millie (2005), Calendar Girls (2011) and Annie (2015). In 2018, she was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical, for the original West End production of Young Frankenstein.

Lesley is great mates with Biggins so we're in for a real treat with this pairing!

These events are in partnership with and booked through TheatreTokens.com
https://www.theatretokens.com/buy-now/events/at-home-with-alex-jennings-and-libby-purves.aspx
https://www.theatretokens.com/buy-now/events/at-home-with-lesley-joseph--christopher-biggins.aspx

These events are sponsored by Theatre Royal's Autumn Sponsor, Churchgates.

Tickets for the event have been priced at an affordable £5 with the option to add a donation to Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds when booking. Any donations will be added to their The Show Will Go On! appeal.

Tickets for the event cost £5 and sold exclusively on TheatreTokens.com
Theatre Tokens or debit/credit card can be used as payment.
This is a fundraising event in support of Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds (Registered Charity Number 242977.