The Extreme Staycation

Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I always think it's great when you see an actor perform a role that you never would have imagined them doing. One example is Hugh Grant who has thoroughly shaken his foppish persona in recent years taking on roles such as  Jeremy Thorpe  in A Very English Scandal , the baddie  Phoenix Buchanan  in Paddington 2 and probably my favourite, the tabloid journalist (who Grant is well known for detesting) called Fletcher in The Gentlemen . Another such performance for me was Benedict Cumberbatch in Frankenstein , this week's NT Live.  I have always thought he was a good actor, but I've never seen him take such a physical role as that of the Creature in this production.  He totally commits and is on stage for the majority of the 2 hour run time - it must have been exhausting!  Catch it while you can: Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...

Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown One of the freebies available at the moment is from the National Theatre.  This is a theatre I visit regularly and performing there is top of actor dream list. Watching theatre on screen is always a bit odd and as I settled down to watch the fantastic "One Man Two Guvnors" it did take a little while to adjust.  Stage and screen are very different mediums and nothing shows this as starkly as watching a recording of a play. However, all the actors in this production have pretty notable screen careers as well, so it's not like they can't do both - we know they can and after a short time, I stopped "being aware" that I was watching a play. I saw the show when it transferred to the West End with Rufus Hound taking over from James Cordon in the lead role.  I loved this production and watching the filmed version last night still elicited many, many laugh out loud moments, as it is, ...