Tuesday, December 06, 2011


Young Peoples Theatre in Hamilton. Fostering talent.

Richard 111 (and bungy jumping) is playing in Sydney and sparked off some lines of enquiry to follow up.
The old film, with Olivier, as Richard, is very theatrical from 1955, a product of its day with a host of classic English artists of stage and screen to wonder about.  The DVD came to light at Video Ezy.
A later version, 1995, stars Ian McKellen as Richard, and looks very interesting set in Britain as a fascist state and is another who's who of actors but will remain a mystery because the borrowed disk was worn out and faulty.
Annette Bening plays Elizabeth and that brings to mind the outstanding film, American Beauty, with Bening and Kevin Spacey.
Al Pacino's  Looking For Richard   -  a masterclass -   with good reviews in the 1990s has Spacey as Buckingham. Another mystery because of the difficulty in finding a copy. That's what happens when you're twenty years too late.
(It also came to light that Spacey was in LA Confidential which was a rather good entertainment.)

A Kevin Spacey Foundation exists to support dramatic art and it funds Richard's rampage - an arts entity which spans nine countries. The current touring drama is part of the Bridge Project - a Transatlantic endeavour for co-production by British and US dramatists and devoted to producing large-scale classical theatre for international audiences and Sydney became the latest destination. .So that's what makes Spacey 'tick'.

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