By Mark Shenton at Playbill.com

Charity Wakefield, Celia Imrie, Ella Smith  and Harry Hadden-Paton are among the cast of a new production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1776 comedy, The Rivals, that will begin performances at London’s Southwark Playhouse Jan. 12, 2010, prior to an official opening Jan. 15, for a run through Jan. 30.

Acording to press materials, the play will be brought “bang up to date” in the production that also features live musicians and dance. Presented by Red Handed Theatre Company in association with Primavera, it is directed by Red Handed’s artistic director Jessica Swale (also Associate Director at Out of Joint), and also features Cian Barry, Oliver Hollis, Frank Laverty, Christopher Logan, Jenni Maitland, Tom McDonald, Robin Soans and Sam Swainsbury. Set and costume design is by recent Linbury Prize finalist Cara Newman, lighting design is by Tim Bray, with an original score by Laura Forrest-Hay.

The play follows the meddling Mrs Malaprop (Imrie) on her quest to marry off her spirited niece Lydia Languish (Wakefield). But Lydia has ideas of her own about the poetic but penniless Beverley, unaware that he and the handsome Captain Jack Absolute are one and the same person (Hadden-Paton). Meanwhile, her cousin Julia (Smith) is betrothed to the jealousy-prone Faulkland (McDonald), and the stage is set for a tale of romantic entanglement and disguise.

Imrie was recently seen on the London stage in Mixed Up North at Wilton’s Music Hall and Nicholas de Jongh’s Plague Over England at the West End’s Duchess Theatre. She is best known for her TV and stage collaborations with Victoria Wood, including “Dinnerladies” and “Victoria Wood – As Seen on TV” on television, and the stage version of Acorn Antiques – the Musical, based on the scenes from the latter, in which she created the role of Babs, owner of the eponymous store, and won the 2006 Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role playing She has also appeared in the films “Calendar Girls” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary.”

But Freddi has a problem. Having made enough money for five lifetimes, he’s not sure what to do with one.

Matron Eva Luckes returns in the powerful series from the London hospital, dramatised from original records.

Revolution grips the East End as an explosion brings fears of a bomb, and Ethel Bennett and Dr Millais Culpin struggle to control the angry victims. When detectives arrive, Matron Luckes and Chairman Sydney Holland fear the hospital is in danger of becoming an extension of Scotland Yard.

Meanwhile, Sister Ada Russell battles with irascible star surgeon Mr Henry Dean, whose addiction to cocaine is an open secret. And ambitious young Dr Ingrams faces catastrophe in the operating theatre.

After originally opting to keep the pilot in contention for midseason, the network has decided to pass on making the show.

I just hope that means we will get to see her more on UK TV!!!

Photo: Getty Images

New York Magazine enthuses:

she does seem to radiate a sense of charm and familiarity in the way that reminds us more than a little of Drew Barrymore.

Read the rest here

 

 

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Meet David E. Kelley’s newest discovery — Charity Wakefield.

 

After making Calista Flockhart a household name by tapping her as the title character in “Ally McBeal,” the prolific producer has cast the 27-year-old English actress as the female lead in “Legally Mad,” his new quirky legal drama for NBC.

Jon Seda also has been cast in the show, in which Wakefield plays a woman who takes a job at her father’s law firm and quickly becomes the practice’s center.

Her character is deeply devoted to her father and chose to work for him despite being offered several prestigious clerkships out of law school. She is easygoing, deadpan funny and disarms with charm.

Seda (“Homicide”) will play a rugged, grumpy but lovable equal-opportunity offender. The two join previously cast Kristin Chenoweth.

Wakefield, a graduate of the Oxford School of Drama, got her break last year as a star of the BBC’s latest adaptation of Jane Austen’s”Sense and Sensibility.” In the miniseries, which aired in the U.S. on PBS, she portrayed Marianne Dashwood, a role played by Kate Winslet in the 1995 feature.

 

Plunging viewers into London’s East End, Casualty 1907 delivers a gritty, realistic experience of life just over a century ago in Whitechapel. This was a time when the average person lived to be 45 years old and one in five children died by the age of 10. Then, as now, the Royal London was the most advanced emergency hospital in Britain, but with antibiotics and public funding from the NHS still 40 years away, life was tough.

In Casualty 1907, the streets are teeming with trouble and gangland rivalry is rife. One of the first people to stagger through the doors is the leader of the Blind Beggar Gang, Nobby Clark, who has a bullet wound. Under the watchful eye of Matron Eva Luckes, Nurse Ada Russell has to deal with a team of probationary nurses while facing the painful dilemma of taking the job of Ward Sister, even though it threatens to ruin her engagement to Dr James Walton.

The Light Department at the hospital is using a radical new technique – ultra-violet light – to treat appalling cases of skin disease brought on by the cramped, insanitary conditions and lack of sunlight in the East End. The hospital’s chairman, Sydney Holland, is preparing for a visit from the hospital’s patron, Queen Alexandra, who wants to see such a case.

This powerful drama uses case notes, ward reports, autopsy records and intimate diaries to bring actual doctors, nurses and patients from The Royal London Hospital vividly back to life.

Ethell Bennett is played by Charity Wakefield, Nobby Clark by Alfie Allen, Matron Eva Luckes by Cherie Lunghi, Nurse Ada Russell by Sarah Smart, Dr James Walton by Tom Riley and Sydney Holland by Nicholas Farrell.

Sense and Sensibility’s Charity Wakefield will star in upcoming soap spin-off, Casualty 1907.That period drama is just one of two major projects set to boost her profile this year.

She can also be seen with The Bill’s Amita Dhiri in new movie Act of God.

That thriller will feature Max Brown, who played Mark Russell in the revamped Crossroads.

Peter O’Brien, star of Neighbours, The Bill and Casualty, has also signed up to appear in the big-screen offering.

Cross dressing, cod lesbianism and idiocy on the international tennis circuit probably wouldn’t be most people’s idea of the perfect background for a modern reappraisal of a classic fairy tale. But unlikely as it may seem, BBC1’s reworking of Rapunzel as a slapstick comedy, in which a failing East European tennis pro is persuaded to bluff his way into a UK ladies’ tournament in a desperate bid to win some cash, was an unexpected hoot.

Ed Roe’s update of the Rapunzel story was how shamelessly un-PC it was. Lee Ingleby was terrific as dragged-up Jimmy Stojkovic (aka Martina) who, Tootsie-like, fell for Rapunzel (aka Billy Jane) his chief rival in the British Open. The only thing her overprotective stepmother guarded more zealously than Rapunzel’s famous golden tresses (the subject of a major shampoo sponsorship deal) was her daughter’s maidenhood – and employed a veritable army to protect it. But needless to say, Martina and Billy Jane – nudge, wink – eventually found a way to play tonsil tennis happily ever after.

Charity Wakefield and Geraldine James clearly revelled in the roles of rebellious daughter and obsessive mother. But, then, the frenetic pace and silly storyline seemed to inflate the performances of everyone involved. Shaun Williamson and Tony Way made a memorable double act as Stojkovic’s blockheaded dad and brother, as did Emily Joyce and Alex Jennings as a pair of smarmy TV sports commentators.