Why ‘Hyde Park On Hudson’ is a Presidential Bromance

Why ‘Hyde Park On Hudson’ is a Presidential Bromance

Features By Caitlin Hughes on October 5, 2012 | Be the First To Comment

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“What stutter? This goddamn polio!” – FDR, Hyde Park on Hudson
“You have all of the skills in the world but you have no confidence. Now, sack up, man!” – Sydney Fife, I Love You, Man

In recent years, the bromance genre has come into full fruition. Most of these films center on male relationships with similar dynamics, with one man taking the role of ribald bad influence on his more nebbish, uptight friend. Take I Love You, Man, for example – uptight, friendless Peter (Paul Rudd) meets freewheelin’ Rush enthusiast Sydney (Jason Segel) and gradually comes out of his shell over the course of their bonding.
Similarly, the heart of Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson (review here) is the “special relationship” between FDR (Bill Murray) and King George VI (Samuel West). In a sense, the film connotes that the US supports Britain during WWII because of the fact that FDR and Bertie become bros. After some bonding and chatting (and presumably some deep research in foreign policy), FDR makes the decision to help his buddy out and encourages him to have confidence in himself as a leader. Thus begs the question: what if Hyde Park on Hudson was re-purposed as a bromance? And so it goes:

FDR is a ladies man who likes to hit the sauce from time to time. He has a tried and true method for snaring the womenfolk – he shows them his vast stamp collection – and it works every time. In addition to running the country, he’s got 99-type problems now that his mistress found out about his other mistress… and let’s not forget that old battleax wife Eleanor is still milling around!
Meanwhile, King George VI (aka Bertie) and his wife are making their way to stay at FDR’s home for the weekend. Both are super uptight and have a comical misunderstanding of America. When they stop for a rest on a road alongside a cornfield, for instance, he proclaims, “I want to meet some Americans!” as he sees a tractor go by.
Some drama – word gets out to the royal couple that the FDR plans to serve them hot dogs at their upcoming picnic! Queen Elizabeth, forever the pill, thinks the hot dogs are an insult. Bertie, however, is willing to roll with the punches. Though the doubt lingers on whether or not FDR is trying to make a fool out of them…
Dinner that evening is a real turning point for the two bros-to-be. Influenced by FDR, Bertie enjoys a cocktail (in public!) and starts mimicking his zany behavior. Without provocation, a shelf holding all of the dinner plates collapses mere feet away from the dinner table and fortified by martinis, Bertie is first to call “party foul!” Egged on by FDR’s laughter, Bertie calls out another when one of the maids falls down while holding the tray. Queen Elizabeth looks on disapprovingly – why, he’s acting absolutely American!
After dinner, FDR and Bertie go to the study for a man-to-man talk. It’s time to talk chicks… and foreign policy, too. FDR shares his favorite method of nabbing “birds,” the stamps, and emphasizes the necessity in getting his women off his back. He proclaims, “You have to give them a reason not to bother you!” Bertie nods excitedly, since Queen Elizabeth is always on his case about something. Bertie shares that he’s not confident in his kingship, considering his stutter and all. FDR smirks, “What stutter? This goddamn polio!” An exchange of meaningful looks and giggling occurs, and thus the bromance is in full bloom. After imbibing, a drunk Bertie scampers up the stairs, enlivened by this hearty man-to-man chat, and into the bedroom…
A day or so later, temperatures climb and our bros decide to take a swim. It’s cool – the paparazzi can’t capture this “boys gone wild” moment, since FDR forbids any photo taking. Gleefully, the two drive past the paps in their bathing suits, smiling with self-satisfaction.
The day of reckoning is upon them: the hot dog picnic. Is FDR being forthright with all this hot dog business? Queen Elizabeth is still doubtful about the sausage fest, and Bertie cheekily snaps back that he will eat ten of them! Sure enough, FDR was keeping it real. The hot dogs are delicious (and also symbolically strengthened relations between the US and Britain).
FDR also agrees to help his bro out in WWII. Our boys have forged a special relationship indeed!

Close the Coalhouse Door – Oxford Playhouse

Close the Coalhouse Door – Oxford Playhouse

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June 20th, 2012

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Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Writer: Alan Plater with additional material by Lee Hall, based on stories by Sid Chaplin

Music: Alex Glasgow

Director: Samuel West

Reviewer: Mary Tapper

The Public Reviews Rating:

A history lesson, a comedy, a drama, a musical, a damning political statement – Close the Coalhouse Door is all of these things and more. Add in to the mixture a completely barmy sense of humour and extremely talented musician and actors and you have a wonderfully heady mixture that delights and surprises.
The revolving set is cleverly designed by Soutra Gilmour as a mining family house in 1968 and we are treated to reminiscences as a family celebrate the Grandfather and Grandmother’s golden wedding anniversary. The storytelling takes us back to 1832 to see how patient miners had to be to improve conditions in the mines, with 40 years of campaigns and strikes before significant action was taken. While older members of the household tell us the history of the efforts, we are also shown the reality of life in 1968 – two brothers at each others throats as one returns home with girlfriend in tow, the other resentful and bitter, having stayed behind to work down the mine. These two parallel themes of history and “ the present day” of 1968 are cleverly interwoven throughout the evening and the dual narrative works very effectively adding dramatic interest and asking new questions of the next generation.
After the first interval we look at how things develop between the World Wars and the quirky comedy writing really comes to the fore as the pace ratchets up…. it is a job to keep up with switches of character and sheer zaniness, but always a pleasure, as we are swept along in the sheer madness and speed of the production! All the actors perform well but without a doubt Jane Holman, as Mary, steals the show – whenever she is on stage she draws the eye and her enthusiasm, versatility and acting skills are a pleasure to behold. With no weak links amongst them, members of the cast all play multiple roles, as history appears before our very eyes, inviting interest and producing moments of great humour.
In act three we are shown how, amongst others, Harold Wilson influenced what happened to the coal mining industry and then we are skilfully swept along to the present day with a dramatic updating of history, rich in irony and sarcasm, never straying into maudlin territory and always packing a great punch.
Costumes and set are excellent and with stirring songs and creative musical accompaniment from the cast there is much to admire. My one reservation is that it takes a few minutes to tune into all the accents right at the start of the show, as the dialogue races along, but this is a small quibble in an otherwise highly successful evening. Lighting is beautifully planned and adds pathos and atmosphere to the production, with areas of the stage being picked out for emphasis, and mining lamps and a standard lamp just two small devices cleverly used. The programme provides good background history on the mining industry and its key figures and is recommended.
Music is a delight with excellent singing and sound levels well set. The cast sing both individually and as a group, where they create skilful harmonies, singing with force and passion to create moving anthems. The songs stick in the mind, particularly the rather haunting Close the Coalhouse Door that repeats throughout the evening.
As the music from the last song fades and pictures of closed mines are projected onto a desolate abandoned house it is hard not to feel stirred and moved by the evening. Delivered with good humour and wit this story has far more effect on us that if it were told in a preaching tone. It wins us over with its sarcasm and knowing looks, its asides and bad jokes, until we believe every word of the tale and admire the zeal and guts of the fight, even if it is ultimately in vain. Passionate and full of life. Recommended.

Runs until 23rd June and touring.

Picture: Keith Pattison

The Public Review

Play mines a rich vein of Plater wit

Monday, June 18, 2012

Close The Coalhouse Door, by the Hull-raised dramatist Alan Plater, attracted busloads of miners when it was first staged in the 1960s.
The initial run – telling of the history of mining in the North East – was extended five times at its Newcastle run to cope with the numbers of visiting pitmen.

Given that heritage, it is little wonder director Samuel West felt a nagging concern when he began casting for this production.
"I was apprehensive," Samuel said. "Finding people to populate a play with a strong sense of place and music at its heart was always going to involve a big search.
"The shopping list of skills we needed was long: native or convincing Geordies who can sing, move, tour and play at least one musical instrument."
Most important, Samuel said, was to find those with the "talent and the wit" to serve the words of Alan Plater and Sid Chaplin – whose stories inspired the play.
He needn't have worried: "People came in with songs and speeches that showed they had this play in their blood."
The musical play – co-produced by Live Theatre and Northern Stage – is being performed at York Theatre Royal next week.
Featuring songs by Alex Glasgow, inspired by the folk music of the North East, the drama charts the major strikes, victories and disappointments in British mining history from the formation of the first unions in 1831.
Previous revivals had been updated by Alan, who was born in Tyneside. After his death in 2010, Billy Elliott writer Lee Hall took over, including references to the miners' strike of 1984-85 for this latest production.
In a published edition of the play, Alan described it as a "hymn of unqualified praise to the miners". He wrote: "If, today, the hymn is more in the nature of an elegy, it is a strain that haunts the dreams of everyone with roots in the North East."

Hull and East Riding

 

Trailer for Hyde Park on Hudson

Trailer for Hyde Park on Hudson, Starring Bill Murray and Laura Linney

Source: Yahoo! Movies

May 18, 2012

Focus Features has debuted the trailer for Hyde Park on Hudson, the December 7 release directed by Roger Michell and starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams, Samuel West, Olivia Colman, Elizabeth Wilson, Elizabeth Marvel and Eleanor Bron.

In June 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Murray) and his wife Eleanor (Williams) host the King and Queen of England (West, Colman) for a weekend at the Roosevelt home at Hyde Park on Hudson, in upstate New York � the first-ever visit of a reigning English monarch to America. With Britain facing imminent war with Germany, the Royals are desperately looking to FDR for support. But international affairs must be juggled with the complexities of FDR's domestic establishment, as wife, mother, and mistresses all conspire to make the royal weekend an unforgettable one. Seen through the eyes of Daisy (Laura Linney), Franklin's distant cousin, neighbor, and intimate, the weekend will produce not only a special relationship between two great nations, but, for Daisy � and through her, for us all � a deeper understanding of the mysteries of love and friendship.

 

 

 

Close the Coalhouse Door, Richmond Theatre - review

Fiery music and politics in Lee Hall's reworking of this poignant portrait of pit life

Stoic: Thomas (Nicholas Lumley)

10 May 2012

Lee Hall, via Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters, has done more than most to edge coalmining into the cultural consciousness. It’s fitting, therefore, that he should provide additional material, most strikingly via a poignant end note, for this revival of Alan Plater’s passionate, angry 1968 musical play about the history of mining’s union struggles from the early 19th century onwards.

It’s not the most instantly accessible of dramas, as an insufficiently characterised couple’s golden wedding celebrations segue into flashbacks from mining’s past. Once we’ve hurtled through a couple of decades, however, it makes for rewarding, thought-provoking viewing; a plangent through-line is the miners’ continuing disappointment with the Labour Party, even after coal’s nationalisation. Samuel West’s perkily Brechtian production extracts every drop of drama from the myriad mini-scenes and tips knowing winks at gags us soft southerners are unlikely to get.
Designer Soutra Gilmour’s large pit wheel towers pensively over the stage, which is peopled by a hard-working cast of nine actor-musicians among whom Jane Holman as a pitman’s stoic wife stands out. Alex Glasgow’s evocative folk songs provide stirring interludes and underline quite what a sense of community was lost along with nearly all our mines.
Close the Coalhouse Door runs until May 12 (0844 871 7651, atgtickets.com/richmond). Also at the Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford, May 29-June 2.

Classic coalhouse play relaunched at Richmond Theatre

Classic coalhouse play relaunched at Richmond Theatre

7:20am Sunday 6th May 2012 in News By Christine Fleming

Close the coalhouse door by Alan Plater.
Photo credit: - Keith Pattison

A play charting all the major strikes, victories and disappointments in British mining history will launch its national tour at Richmond Theatre.
Close the Coalhouse Door is based on the stories of Sid Chaplin, a miner turned writer, with joyful and heart-tugging music inspired by folk songs from the north-east of England.
The play, by Alan Plater, was first performed in Newcastle in 1968 but has been revived as a memorial production following his death in 2010.
Director Samuel West says the work is moving in places but some of the original folk songs are “cheeky and very funny” and he promises theatregoers a good night out.
He says: “Coalhouse is set at a golden wedding - so of course it’s a party to honour 50 years of love and family life. “But it's also a celebration of a community - of the north-east miners, the stories and the songs that inspired them and commemorated their lives and losses, their victories and their struggle. “And it celebrates an important principle - that as people we must make and produce things, not just sell things.”

Plater is considered one of the greatest writers of the golden age of British television drama. As well as 18 episodes of Z-Cars, he wrote Fortunes of War, the Beiderbecke Affair, the Last of the Blonde Bombshells and A Very British Coup.
Erica Whyman, chief executive and artistic director of Northern Stage, says: “Coalhouse is a warm-hearted, timely and powerfully moving piece of theatre which speaks to many of our fears and furies about the times we’re living through now.”
Close the Coalhouse Door, Richmond Theatre. Wednesday, May 9, until Saturday, May 12. Call 0844 8717651.

This Is Local London

Close the Coalhouse Door – review

Northern Stage, Newcastle

• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 May 2012 18.00 BST

There's a strong theme of fathers and sons running throughout Close the Coalhouse Door. First Alan Plater dramatised stories by his mentor, the literary pitman Sid Chaplin, singing the praises of the north-eastern mining tradition. Now Plater's heir apparent, Lee Hall, has provided supplementary material, bringing the story up to date.
"Bringing the story up to date" means, of course, incorporating the fact that there's no north-eastern mining industry left to sing about. In Soutra Gilmour's design, the red-brick terraced house in which the action takes place is now condemned, overlooked by a billboard advertising Meryl Streep's performance as The Iron Lady. But it very much remains Plater's piece. Hall likens his intervention to "keyhole surgery. I kept thinking, 'What would Alan do?'"
First staged in 1968, Close the Coalhouse Door did for the coalfields what Oh! What a Lovely War did for the fields of Flanders. Its roots lie in a long history of politicised struggle, but its soul belongs to the music hall. The setting is a family gathering to celebrate a golden wedding anniversary, though the front parlour is really a forum for Plater's playful brand of gritty northern surrealism, in which a family dispute is interrupted by Lord Hailsham performing a Geordie vaudeville routine, or Harold Wilson popping round to explain government fuel policy.
The original threw a brass band into the works: Samuel West's exuberant production (a collaboration between Northern Stage and Live Theatre) makes do with an engaging ensemble of actor-musicians, with the original folk anthems of Alex Glasgow treated to inventive new arrangements by Sam Kenyon. And Hall's surgery, though subtle, is incisive. His main contribution is to add a telling coda that links the collapse of the coal industry to the rise of the call centre. What would Plater have done? He'd have laughed a lot and despaired a little, along with everyone else.

Close the Coalhouse Door, Northern Stage, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

By Chris Tighe

Superb casting does justice to the fine music of Alex Glasgow and the prose of Sid Chaplin

“It’s only a story,” sing the characters at the end of Lee Hall’s adapted version of Close the Coalhouse Door, Alan Plater’s affectionate portrayal of a mining community in the north-east of England.
When it was first staged in 1968, this musical play’s honesty and humour made it a huge hit with the people it represented, luring many miners into the theatre. For them, this was no story; it was their world, made vivid with great writing and stirring music. Today, with UK coal mining and the communities that depended on it mere shadows of their powerful past selves, the challenge is to ensure that the play’s timeless humanity, and our conclusions about the fate of those communities since pit closures, are not engulfed by the history it recites.

In this regard, this new production, a collaboration between Northern Stage and Live Theatre, both Newcastle-based, is helped by superb casting. Under director Samuel West, the actors are thoroughly convincing in the play’s sudden shifts between pathos, lyricism and comedy. And they do justice to the fine music of Alex Glasgow and the prose of Sid Chaplin, both north-easterners whose innate feel for their region shone through in their collaboration with Plater.
The set works well. A terraced house façade, above which looms the skeletal framework of pithead winding gear, pivots to create, on one side, a simple street, on the other a cosy living room.
Cosy is not a word ever applied to Billy Elliot, Lee Hall’s seminal work about a boy’s yearning to dance set against the grim background of the 1984-1985 miners’ strike. Nor to Pitman Painters, his theatrical triumph with Live Theatre, although it too drew on historical reality.
In this production, Hall is loyal to his friend and mentor Plater, who died in 2010. Hall describes his additional material as “keyhole surgery”; in particular he has enhanced the role of Ruth, the outsider who challenges John, the young miner, over his ambivalent attitude to his identity. Only in John, whose inner struggles recall miner Oliver Kilbourn in the Pitman Painters, do we see real depth of character.
For a fleeting moment towards the end, Hall propels us into 2012; the result is both comic and uncomfortable. Otherwise, we must draw our own conclusions about what happened after the mid-70s, when the play ends. This is the prequel, not the sequel, to Billy Elliot.

Until May 5, then touring. www.northernstage.co.uk

Financial Times

The Stage - Close the Coalhouse Door

Close the Coalhouse Door

Published Thursday 19 April 2012 at 14:20 by Laura Fraine

Alan Plater’s celebrated 1968 play of the North East miner’s struggle was based on stories by his friend and mentor Sid Chaplin. The play has been handed down like the stories within and there is a pleasing continuity in the fact that Lee Hall, for whom Plater was a mentor, has brought it up to date.

From a powerful opening, the production maintains a keen rhythm. As always, Soutra Gilmour’s set enhances the narrative.

There is a lot of talent on stage. All actors sing and play music arranged by Sam Kenyon. Jane Holman (Mary) and Nicholas Lumley (Thomas) both give outstanding performances as the resilient older couple for whom history, family and the pit are all intertwined. Chris Connel’s union man, Jackie, is an interesting character, his strong self-assurance in direct contrast to embittered John (Paul Woodson), the only man of the group who still labours at the coalface. David Nellist plays Geordie, the joker, and as such is given the pivotal line: “But the conscience of the nation was stirred,” which becomes emptier with each refrain, even while the production hammers away to stir something in us. The politics are central, just occasionally at the drama’s expense, which demands an unlikely but politically convenient love-triangle. The beautiful writing in this play strikes right to the heart, though it is Alex Glasgow’s songs - tough as the pitmen, rich as the seam - which endure long after the curtain falls.

Production information

Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne, April 18-May 5, then touring until June 30

Author:Alan Plater, Lee Hall

Director:Samuel West

Producer:Northern Stage and Live Theatre

Cast includes:Chris Connel, Louisa Farrant, Jane Holman, Nicholas Lumley, David Nellist, Paul Woodson

Running time:2hr 40min

The Stage

Billy Elliot Writer Lee Hall Updates Alan Plater Play 'Close The Coalhouse Door'

By Nisha Joshi Location: Newcastle






Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall has helped update Alan Plater’s play Close the Coalhouse Door.

The production is set in a North East pit village and charts the major strikes, victories and disappointments in British mining history from the formation of the first unions in 1831.

The story is based on short stories by Sid Chaplin and is structured around music inspired by North East folk songs of each period.

Lee Hall was commissioned to revisit the piece with a new ending to bring it up to date, as the play was written before the critical 1984-85 miners' strike.

This latest version of Close the Coalhouse Door is a co-production between Northern Stage and Live Theatre and directed by actor and director Samuel West.

The play is on at Northern Stage until May 3 before touring the country.

It will return to the North East when it plays at Durham’s Gala Theatre from June 12-16.


Tyne and Wear Sky

Review: Close The Coalhouse Door, Northern Stage

Review: Close The Coalhouse Door, Northern Stage

• by Gordon Barr, Evening Chronicle
• Apr 20 2012



A revamp of Close The Coalhouse Door had its world premiere in Newcastle this week

 

A REVAMP of Close The Coalhouse Door had its world premiere in Newcastle this week. Entertainment Editor Gordon Barr was there on opening night.
THEATRE in Education is a great thing ...but here you have education within theatre.
Close The Coalhouse Door was a huge success when it first premiered in Newcastle back in 1968.
Written by Alan Plater with songs by Alex Glasgow, it saw miners foregoing their trips to St James’ Park to see the Toon in favour of sitting in a darkened theatre to watch socialist drama. Such was the power of Plater’s work, it attracted the masses from the mining villages who had never witnessed this art form before, believing it to be more for those ‘Jesmond types’. Those Jesmond types still come in for some ridicule in this new version of the play, directed by Samuel West with additional material by Lee Hall.
While times may have moved on, at the heart of this production is that we should never forget our past and what we get is in fact a history lesson on the struggles of our mining communities ... perhaps the biggest legacy of how life in the region, and its people, was shaped.
Written before the blackouts of the 70s and the miners strike of the 80s, the big question was how would Lee Hall update it to take that into account.
He does so in very clever ways – audiences are met with a big publicity poster of The Iron Lady in front of the ‘coalhouse’ backdrop before any drama actually begins. At the end of the performance, we are left in no doubt about the impact of the 70s and 80s, without detracting from the main body of the play whatsoever – the ending sequence a stroke of sheer genius, bringing us bang up to date with our call centre culture of today.
The body of the work is predominantly Plater’s and takes us through the strikes, strife, traumas and political fighting of our mining communities from the 1830s to 1960s. It has heart, it has soul, it has guts, its has pathos ... it also has humour and wonderful musical moments too.

Spread over three acts, each is so compelling it feels like it lasts half the time, with the subject matter resonating with anyone with North East connections.
There is a superb link from the end of act one into the interval, just one of numerous interjections that makes the audience feel they are a part of the drama too.
A true ensemble piece, Chris Connel, David Nellist, Adam Barlow, Nicholas Lumley, Louisa Farrant, Jane Holman, Tarek Merchant, Jack Wilkinson and Paul Woodson excel throughout.
A co-production between Live Theatre and Northern Stage – playing at the latter until May 5 – this remains a triumphant piece of theatre.
It is also a striking piece of education that all generations should see, learn and benefit from.

Read More http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/entertainment-in-newcastle/theatre/2012/04/20/review-close-the-coalhouse-door-northern-stage-72703-30802471/#ixzz1sbNHSH00

Close the Coalhouse Door (Tour - Newcastle)

Close the Coalhouse Door (Tour - Newcastle)

Venue: Northern Stage (previously known as Newcastle Haymarket Playhouse)
Where: Newcastle upon Tyne
Date Reviewed: 19 April 2012
WOS Rating:
Reader Reviews: View and add to our user reviews
Northern Stage and Live Theatre have joined forces to present a revival of Alan Plater's hit play Close the Coalhouse Door.
First performed at the Flora Robson Theatre in 1968, the play has gone on to be performed over the years in many guises, this time round as a tour de force in acting, direction, comedy and musicianship.
Performed in true Brechtian fashion, the audience is distanced from the action on stage. You're made to think, to get angry, to get mad about the injustice of the character's situation, to get mad about the history of the politic, and the lies that continue to be told.
Yes this is real grass roots theatre, the type of theatre that was the main stay of an early Live Theatre. The production is directed by Samuel West, taking time off from a busy schedule as an actor. This is why the production works and benefits from an actor's knowledge and experience.
The company are so at ease with each other the scenes work seamlessly, split staging, swopping characters, changing time frames all work to great effect. The setting from Soutra Gilmour is wonderful, creative yet simple, effective yet evocative.
There are moments when a few more runs would cement the flow of action, but it's a few days into the run, so let's forget it and not be pedantic. The cast of nine work with great flair throughout the performance and there are strong performances from each member of the cast. In true Marxist fashion, I am not singling anyone out for special praise, comrade.
I am meant to be impartial, not swayed by theatrical tricks, but I stood and applauded in a standing ovation. This production really has to be seen. I mean if you really appreciate good theatre, then you have to see it.

- Damian Robson

Whats On Stage

 

Close the Coalhouse Door delivers miners' message

11 April 2012

By Ian Youngs Arts reporter, BBC News

Director Samuel West and writer Lee Hall hope a revival of Alan Plater's 1968 play Close the Coalhouse Door can teach a new generation about fighting for their rights.



Mining is a theme in Lee Hall's work from Billy Elliot
to The Pitmen Painters. Photo: NCJ Media



When I put my first question to Samuel West, a simple query about his motivation for staging Close the Coalhouse Door, he begins his answer with the words: "I make no secret of the fact that I disagree with the direction of our current government..."

The play is 44 years old and centres on the lives of miners in Newcastle, so it may seem odd that the conversation immediately turns to modern politics.

But Samuel West - the actor-director who starred in Howard's End and the play Enron - and Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall are both political animals.
So it soon transpires that there is more to this revival, which opens at Northern Stage in Newcastle on Friday, than just the resurrection of a neglected theatrical treasure.
When the play first came to the city in 1968, it was a massive hit.
Stories of pitmen going to the theatre instead of the football on a Saturday afternoon, and of coachloads of miners rolling up at the theatre in their Sunday best, have passed into local legend.
The plot revolves around a Newcastle family looking back on 140 years of miners' struggles against pit-owners and politicians.


Actor-turned-director Samuel West: "It was a story that needed to be told." Photo: Topher McGrillis



But Plater's irreverent saga of bickering brothers and plucky underdogs, coupled with songs by Alex Glasgow, is more than just a dry lesson in the history of industrial relations.

Starting in the 1830s, it recounts how pioneering unions formed, and went on strike, in protest at long hours worked by young boys and "bonds" that tied miners to punishing rules and conditions.

By joining together for strength in the face of hardship, the miners gradually won more rights as the decades wore on.

 


"The play becomes very relevant because it is a celebration of having collectively achieved something as a nation that I think we're in danger of throwing away," says Hall.

"It's a reminder that the life we rely on now was not always the case. People had to fight for it."
The play has lessons for people hit by of the current financial crisis and austerity cuts, he believes.


Close the Coalhouse Door opens at Northern Stage
 in Newcastle before going on a UK tour



"There's a feeling now that it's so hopeless and there's nothing we can do and we just have to put up with it because it's the inexorable forces of history and economics.

"[In the play] you see that every 30 or 40 years, just in one industry alone, exactly the same things happen again and again.
"But what they didn't do was just to sit and take it. What they did do was to fight back."
The play is "very provocative" in today's climate, he says.
West, the son of British acting legends Timothy West and Prunella Scales and a former member of the Socialist Workers' Party, is similarly strident.
He accuses the coalition government of using the financial crisis as "an excuse" to reduce living standards and turn individuals against each other.
"That's not how progress is made and it isn't how the miners progressed in this country," he says. "I thought it was a story that needed to be told, really."
West winces at the thought he is "preaching" and insists it is a good piece of theatre. "It's not at all narrow agitprop."



Many people will disagree with the pair's politics and with Plater's interpretation of history, which firmly pits the gutsy workers against the evil elite.

And while it was a hit in Newcastle first time around, the play was a flop when it moved to the West End.



The play was televised by the BBC in 1968



The north-east folk story, dominated by the mining industry's heroes and villains, did not strike a chord in London. The thick Geordie brogue probably did not help.

This time the show, a co-production between Northern Stage and Live Theatre in Newcastle, is going on tour after its run in the city.

Hall and West are confident that it will fare better in places like Richmond-upon-Thames, Guildford and Oxford than it did in the West End.

For the new version, Hall, a friend and protege of Plater, has added a short scene at the beginning to take people back to 1968, and one at the end that gives the 1968 family's rose-tinted vision of how the next 44 years would pan out.



Alan Plater was made a CBE for services to drama in 2005, five years before his death



Unfortunately, Newcastle United have not ended up as winners of the European Cup for 15 years in a row.

But Hall and West want the miners of the past to deliver a serious message to the audiences of the present. So what difference can a show like this really make?

"I'm not sure that plays can make any difference, but they can make people think," Hall says.

"If it reminds one single person that what is purported to be inevitable is not inevitable, then it will have been worth reviving.

"I think its big message is that the people of the 99%, the ordinary people, have some power and can alter things. I think it's a timely reminder to people that that is the case."

Sam West: 'I'm cheap and available – tell your friends!'

He may be theatre royalty – and he observes the fashion for class – but the actor/director is more political than posh

Sunday 08 April 2012  

Belief in the project, for which Lee Hall has supplied additional material to Plater's blazing 1968 script, is something that West, 45, possesses in abundance. He's certainly done his homework, quoting frightening statistics about safety standards in Chilean mines, and providing staunch defence of the union movement, whose struggles and occasional triumphs down the decades provide the beating heart of the play. "If you want to use Conservative rhetoric, unions are the Big Society in action, people getting together to help each other for not very much money," he says pointedly. As a council member for the actors' union, Equity, and vice-chair of the National Campaign for the Arts, it's a point that matters dearly to him.

Lee Hall has provided staunch advocacy of mining before, in Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters, and I wonder aloud whether mining has, for us now, somehow come to symbolise something greater than itself, namely the death of a manufacturing and unionised Britain. "I think it does stand for something we fear we might have lost," West agrees sadly. "Part-time jobs, itinerant workplaces or service jobs don't breed unionisation – or community, or community spirit – in the same way."

All of which seems a good juncture to ask him for his views on the "actors and class" debate that has been rumbling in the media for some weeks, ignited by Downton Abbey's Rob James-Collier saying that it's harder for working-class actors and Dominic West (no relation to Sam) adding fuel to the flames by claiming "Old Etonian" is a label that provokes hatred. Sam West starts off by sidestepping the question. "Speaking personally, as somebody who does a reasonably good RP, I wish I was 10 years younger. When I came out of university, from about 1989 to 2002 nobody made anything but East End gangster movies. And now everybody's doing posh stuff and I haven't got any cheekbones any more! I've got my career in completely the wrong order!"

I suspect this won't be West's last word on the subject, and it isn't. "Shameless is the new Boys from the Blackstuff: there's certainly a change in the way the working classes are being portrayed on television. In our last government we had a home secretary who used to be a postman and now we've got the 19th Eton-educated prime minister, so Dominic might reflect on that. I hasten to add that I'm an enormous fan of Dominic's and I get quite a lot of his fan mail, so I don't want to diss him in any way!"

West returns from time to time to the subject of social mobility. "I think it's really important that what it's like to live in this country doesn't just become an upper-class narrative," he says at one point, before concluding as we part, "I really do think the things that make our society what it is are under threat. It should be about everyone having the potential to be what they're going to be."

What, then, does he think about our current televisual fixation with the rigid class hierarchies of the past, in Downton and Upstairs Downstairs? He confesses that he doesn't watch the programmes but hopes they're not a reflection of an idea that this is the way things are supposed to be.

"I wonder whether we look back to a time of supposed certainty, where people knew their place, because we don't know our place at the moment and looking into the future is difficult. The really interesting thing about reviving a play written in 1968 is there's a much stronger feeling of potential and hope for the future. At the moment we are having to face the known possibility that we are passing on to our children a less good world than we inherited. I don't mind people being at the top of the ladder, I mind them pulling it up after them." Would he ever consider a role in period dramas like these? "Of course. I'm cheap and available – tell your friends!'

Despite fluctuating demand for cheekbones and RP, West has enjoyed a wonderfully varied career as an actor, director and voiceover artist. One of his earliest roles, as Leonard Bast in Merchant Ivory's exquisite film adaptation of E M Forster's Howards End, led to a Bafta nomination and with it the chance to try to crack Hollywood. However, after discussing the possibility with his parents, Prunella Scales and Timothy West, he chose to stay at home.

Does he regret that? "Only in so far as one regrets the things one hasn't done just because one hasn't done them. When people say, 'If I had my life over again I wouldn't do anything different', well, I'd do everything differently just for the variety'." This course of action, he says, meant he didn't have to "risk failure" in Los Angeles. Is he scared of failure? "Not as much as I'm scared of success," he replies emphatically.

Success happened over here anyway, with acclaimed turns as Richard II and Hamlet for the RSC and, latterly, with the "performance of his career", as one critic described it, as Jeffrey Skilling in the multi-award-winning Enron. He also had two years as artistic director at Sheffield, before disagreements with the board ended his tenure. Did he enjoy being at the helm? "Modified rapture," he says wryly. "It was awfully difficult and I messed up a lot of things about it." Nevertheless, he'd like to run another building some day and I suggest that the Almeida, just over the road from his Islington flat, might be the perfect fit.

West is disarmingly honest about the benefits of having parents well established in the family business. "It certainly got me auditions, but I don't think it ever got me jobs. People wanted to meet me because they knew my parents, yes." He claims that all his professional ambitions – "to be in Doctor Who, play Hamlet and read the shipping forecast" – have been fulfilled. So what about doing a Glenda Jackson and going into politics? "Being a frustrated idealist backbencher, like many of my favourite MPs, would sometimes be hell on earth," he says ruefully. Anyway, for now, Sam West is gloriously content with taking a play about coal-mining to Newcastle.

Close the Coalhouse Door is at Northern Stage, Newcastle, 13 April to 5 May (0191 230 5151, northern stage.co.uk), then tours nationwide until 30 June

On the most cursory of glances, it seems an unlikely fit. Actor-director Samuel West, owner of some of the nicest vowel sounds on our stage and Oxford-educated scion of famous acting parents, is off to Newcastle to direct Alan Plater's fierce modern classic about mining, Close the Coalhouse Door. Yet after just a few minutes' conversation, West, eloquent and personable, leaves one in no doubt as to his passionately held political and ideological convictions. He's clear what he would say to any who question his suitability for this job. "Their point would be? That I'm not authentic? I didn't believe in talking mice either, but I was still allowed to be in Narnia [as King Caspian in the television adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]. You can't tell the story of mines without believing that most of the time progress was made at the expense of the people who were at the bottom and got paid the least. I believe that, so that means I'm allowed to direct the play!"

DVD Review – Dark Relic

Posted April 3, 2012 6:48 pm ○ Show Tags

Tags: Dark Relic, MJ Smith

 

 

Dark Relic

Tagline: n/a
Director: Lorenzo Sena
Cast: James Frain, Samuel West, Clemency Burton-Hill and Tom Basden
Distributor: Koch Media
Release date: 9th April 2012

Review

Dark Relic; Light Fluff
I sat down to watch the screener of Dark Relic having never heard of it – something that actually happens less and less in this internet age. So with no concept of what Dark Relic might be about my mind got excited with possibilities. The ‘Dark’ part could refer to a theme a la Se7en, or a lack of light, a la, uh, Se7en. Would the ‘Relic’ part refer to an antique of some sort? Or perhaps Keith Richards? I had no way of knowing. My immediate, gut instinct was that this would be a supernatural film with a historical setting… perhaps even featuring some sort of dark relic! As is usual for the most dominant part of my anatomy, my gut was right to take charge.
Dark Relic is indeed set during the Crusades (the first one, not either of the George Bush attempts). A world weary, English Knight tracks down a part of the cross that Christ was crucified on and finally feels as though he has something that justifies the whole bloody war. But as he sets off to return the wood to Blighty, he finds the relic is attracting all manner of plagues and horrors towards its bearer. As he, his men, and assorted people he meets on his journey seek to complete their quest they find that things go bad in a biblical-Job sense.
The most immediate thing that will be noticed by any audience of this movie is how cheap it is. Now I am not a man obsessed by big budgets. Some of my favourite film makers work with low budgets (Hal Hartley and Don Coscarelli, you may take your bows). I will gladly take cheap and ingenuity over expensive and generic any day (Brett Ratner and Michael Bay, you may both take a bullet). But there is just no way to get around just how cheap Dark Relic looks. Everything looks awful – the costumes, the sets, the green screens. If you remember any version of Doctor Who before he was cool and sexy (ie. pre 2000′s) then you can imagine the ‘quality’ of the imagery in Dark Relic. Except you can’t really imagine it, because those old 1970′s Doctor Who episodes must have had ten times the budget of this film. The CGI demon in particular is reminiscent of something from an old arcade fighting game when crazy buzzwords such as ‘rendering’ and ‘polygons’ were blowing the minds of ‘Killer Instinct’ players everywhere. Hell, you can’t even fast forward or rewind the disc. I suppose the extra cost of encoding that feature would have pushed the budget past its 50p limit.
It is clear the screenwriter Andy Briggs had great plans when writing an action film set in the distant past. It was set to feature exotic lands, a large cast, epic battle scenes and even demons from hell. Unfortunately for the director Lorenzo Sena, it seems that he was then given a budget akin to an episode of Postman Pat to try and shoot said script. Because the film is so cheap in every regard it is too impossible to become invested in.
However, despite the film being a literal pain to watch, it is not a total washout. What saves it at all comes down to two factors; firstly the central performance by James Frain. Frain is far better than the material deserves. To be fair to most of the cast, the majority of the performances are better than should be expected. That is not to say they are good necessarily, but at least all of the central cast at least seem committed to delivering their lines with some conviction despite looking as though they are sitting on a discarded Panto set. Ally Khan certainly chews the scenery as the clichéd ‘wise and misunderstood Arab’, but at least he has an easy going charm. Still, it is James Frain alone whom comes out with a respectable nod here.
The second thing that actually saves Dark Relic is its core message. The film tries to bring together the things that Muslims and Christians may have in common; as the film strives further to reinforce the need for equality amongst different sexes, races and religions it at least has a clear morality. This is something which many bigger, more expensive adventure films lack. It should be stressed that most of this morality comes out in rather forced diologues as characters break into debates about the nature of God and the role of evil between bouts of locust attacks and zombie-cannibal-monks (yes, really). Still, it at least it is an upfront attempt at delivering a message highly relevant today, even if it does so with all the subtlety of a grapefruit up the rectum.
Ultimately it is tough to hate a film that clearly had no way of achieving what it set out to do. For ambition and idealism, Dark Relic probably deserves a 4/5. But for the actual finished product it is probably worth a half-point. So a polite average of 2/5 will do nicely.

Rating: 2 stars

MJ Smith

'Hyde Park on Hudson': New Stills of Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt Hit the Web

'Hyde Park on Hudson': New Stills of Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt Hit the Web (Photo)

The actor plays the legendary president in Focus Features' upcoming film.

           2/29/2012

Once occupied by busting ghosts, Bill Murray is now bringing history to life.

Focus Features revealed new photos from Hyde Park on Hudson, the upcoming film in which the Golden Globe winner takes on the role of President Franklin Roosevelt. The Roger Michell-directed film focuses on the president's close friendship -- and rumored affair -- with distant cousin Margaret "Daisy" Suckley, who is being played by Laura Linney. The film is based on the BBC Radio play of the same name by Richard Nelson, who wrote the movie adaptation, as well.
PHOTOS: 20 Top Grossing Movies of 2011
Set during the weekend in 1939 in which Britain's King George VI -- the same one played by Colin Firth in The King's Speech, here played by Samuel West -- and wife, Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman), visited his estate on the Hudson River in New York.
Murray has a busy 2012; he'll also appear in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom and Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. Dan Aykroyd just confirmed that Murray will not be appearing in Ghostbusters 3, should the film get made.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/hyde-park-hudson-new-stills-296075

Cast revealed for new play

• by Gordon Barr, Evening Chronicle
• Feb 29 2012

CASTING has been announced for Alan Plater’s Close The Coalhouse Door, which is being revived by Northern Stage and Live Theatre in Newcastle.
Directed by Samuel West, with additional material by Lee Hall, the production will open at Northern Stage on Wednesday, April 28, with previews from Friday, April 13, and will tour the UK until June 2012.
Adam Barlow (Coronation Street) will play the Vicar, Chris Connel (The Pitmen Painters) will play Jackie, Louisa Farrant (The Glass Slipper, Northern Stage) will play Ruth and Jane Holman (film of Billy Elliot) will play Mary.
Other cast members include David Nellist (Billy Elliot) who will play Geordie, and Paul Woodson (Eternal Law) who will play John.
Samuel West said: “When I began casting Close the Coalhouse Door, I was apprehensive. Finding people to populate a play with a strong sense of place and music at its heart was always going to involve a big search.
“The shopping list of skills we need is long: native or convincing Geordies who can sing, move, tour and play at least one musical instrument and preferably two, and who have the talent and wit to serve Alan Plater and Sid Chaplin’s words.
“I needn’t have worried. At the very first casting session in Newcastle I realised the incredible depth of talent in the North East.”

Close The Coalhouse Door, based on the stories of Sid Chaplin with songs by Alex Glasgow, is a musical play written and first performed in Newcastle in 1968, charting major strikes, victories and disappointments in British mining history from the formation of the first unions in 1831.
The story is structured around music by Alex Glasgow, inspired by north eastern folk songs.
Alan Plater CBE, who died last year, was one of the greatest writers of the golden age of British television drama.

Read More http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/entertainment-in-newcastle/music/2012/02/29/cast-revealed-for-new-play-72703-30425903/#ixzz1nt1uzB1u

Eternal Law Axed After Just One Series

February 21, 2012 by Sarah Cox  

ITV’s Eternal Law- which featured angelic lawyers – has been axed after one series, according to star Samuel West.
West played Zak Gist on the show and broke the news of its cancellation on social networking site, Twitter.
Speaking to his 9, 195 followers, West said: “Alas there will be no more Eternal Law,” he confirmed.
“Not enough people watched it. A thousand thanks to those of you who did, and said such kind things.”
He added: “I’ll miss Zak and the gang enormously, but I’m very proud of the work we did. And we’ll always have York. Onward!”
Despite showing a strong start with 5.43m viewers tuning in when it premiered on ITV1 in January, that figure dropped to a less-than-heavenly 2.9m by the final episode.
The show also starred Orla Brady, Ukweli Roach and Tobias Menzies – not that it matters anymore.