DANNY ELFMAN’S MUSIC FROM THE FILMS OF TIM BURTON | London, Royal Albert Hall

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Danny Elfman will take centre stage at the Royal Albert Hall this October 2023, at a special concert celebrating the composer’s lifetime of work with director Tim Burton. For over thirty-five years, four-time Oscar nominee Danny Elfman has established himself as one of the most versatile and accomplished film composers in the industry.

Elfman himself will make an appearance at the concerts at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 October 2023, which will span three decades of his collaborations with Burton, taking in fifteen classic scores including: Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985); Beetlejuice (1988); Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990); Sleepy Hollow (1999); Alice in Wonderland (2010); and Frankenweenie (2012).

Led by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Crouch End Festival Orchestra, conducted by John Mauceri, the concert will also feature violin soloist Sandy Cameron and a performance from Elfman, as he brings to life his unforgettable songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).

Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton had its world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013, and returned for more sell-out performances the following year. The show now returns to London for a special tenth anniversary performance.

Playing at the Royal Albert Hall Saturday 7 October 2023, 2:30PM and 7:30PM.

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INTERVIEW: SHAUN ESCOFFERY & GEORGE ASPREY (THE LION KING) | London, Lyceum Theatre

Interview

Shaun Escoffery (Mufasa) and George Asprey (Scar) are celebrating fifteen years in Disney’s The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre in London this April. They are now the longest serving actors for these roles in any production of The Lion King ever.

– It’s an incredible achievement to be the longest serving actors in the roles of Mufasa and Scar in any production of The Lion King. How does that accolade feel?

George Asprey: Slightly surreal. It’s more like an accumulation because you’re only ever as good as your last show. It’s taking it one show at a time.

Shaun Escoffery: I feel extremely lucky to be able to do something we love.

– How do you keep things interesting and varied?

Escoffery: This might be our five thousandth time, but it is the audience’s first time, and we always keep that at the forefront of our minds.

Asprey: Also, having the freedom of knowing the character so well, it’s easy to change little things and nuances. Occasionally, you’ll come up with something, after fifteen years, and ask yourself why it’s taken all this time to explore that.

– What are the advantages of having worked together for fifteen years? Imagine if you hated each other.

Asprey: I always tell people that I have four sisters, and I always wanted a brother. I never realised that it would turn out to be this six foot brute from East London.

Escoffery: He’s my best friend.

Asprey: Because we know the roles and each other so well, if something does go wrong, nothing phases us.

– What are some of your fondest memories from the past fifteen years?

Asprey: Seeing Shaun again after COVID. That was a hug! That first show back was extraordinary. The bond created between those on stage and those in the auditorium was just immense. And it was a physical manifestation of reality coming back to normal.

– What’s your favourite song from The Lion King?

Escoffery: “Circle of Life”, every time.

Asprey: “They Live in You”, which Shaun sings: it’s extraordinary. And, I have to say, “Be Prepared”.

Shaun Escoffery and George Asprey are roaring in The Lion King in London’s West End.

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DIVAS LONDON | London, The Prince Of Wales

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The Entertainment Providers (the team behind London’s sell-out, critically acclaimed Snow White And The Seven Merry Men in 2021 and Sinderfella in 2022) sashay back into the West End this summer, with a brand new party show, Divas London, at The Prince Of Wales Cabaret Venue (Drury Lane), for a three-week limited season.

Divas London is a brand-new, live, all-singing, all-dancing party show, celebrating the world’s greatest diva powerhouses: Whitney Houston; Aretha Franklin; Tina Turner; Cher; Celine Dion; Britney Spears; Beyoncé; Diana Ross; Amy Winehouse; Adele – all shall be represented. The show will also feature comedy tributes to the Spice Girls, Kate Bush, and – the Queen of Country – Dolly Parton.

The show will feature a top West End cast of male and female singers, emceed by a drag compère – the hilarious Simon Gross. Expect dazzling costumes and audience participation.

Ginny Lazzoni, General Manager at the Prince of Wales, says, “We are super excited for this opportunity to house this brand new party show for London, which is also perfectly in line with our new vision of the venue: we want it to be London’s number one night out. It’s a show not to miss.”

Audiences will be treated to a night of their classic diva anthems: “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”; “I’m Every Woman”; “If I Could Turn Back Time”; “Hot Stuff”; “Natural Woman”; “Material Girl”; “Think”; “Single Ladies”; “Proud Mary”; “Back to Black”; and many more.

Playing at the Prince of Wales Cabaret Venue 15 June – 2 July 2023.

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INTERVIEW: JOHN NAYAGAM (Under The Black Rock)

Interview

John Nayagam is a British actor best known for playing series regular Hari Prasad in Emmerdale. Born in London, to an Irish mother and an Indian father, He stars in Under the Black Rock at the Arcola Theatre in London.

– Under the Black Rock is set in 1980s Belfast, around the time of the Troubles. What drew you to this play?

I have always been drawn to plays about Ireland. The context is of unfathomable complexity, as history and current affairs tells us, but really I see Under the Black Rock as being a story of a family, navigating this complexity. For me as an actor, what really excites me is the family dynamics.

– What can you tell us about your character?

Cashel Ryan is the head of the family, and nestled in the heart of his Belfast community. He is a Catholic, from rural stock, but not overly religious. But, that said, his rules are the rules – both in his family and his community. He is a criminal, but one with a completely clear conscience; needs must.

– Do you feel you gravitate more to screen or stage? Or both?

I enjoy the theatre, because the process allows a longer and more fruitful relationship with the character, the company and the piece, so it is a better opportunity to explore, and hopefully reveal, more of the character and themes. Conversely, screen, because it is less time-consuming, allows an actor to take on more projects. But, for me, the underlying process and intention remains the same.

– What’s next for you?

A walk with my son, a friend and his son for a few days. Heaven!

John Nayagam stars in Under the Black Rock, playing 2 – 25 March 2023.

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INTERVIEW: Owen Chaponda, Merryl Ansah (The Lion King)

Interview

The award-winning West End production of Disney’s The Lion King will welcome Owen Chaponda (Back to the Future; The Colour Purple) and Merryl Ansah (Heathers; Crazy for You), who will step into the iconic roles of ‘Simba’ and ‘Nala’, this spring. This will mark their return to the show, both having previously performed in the ensemble in the West End production.

– Congratulations to both of you on winning these fiercely competitive roles. How did you react when you found out?

MA: I was at home and came running down the stairs screaming: my mum thought something was wrong! I just couldn’t believe it, but I was ecstatic, and still am.
OC: I called my mum straight away, and she just started screaming and bawling her eyes out!

– What challenges lie ahead for you?

OC: I’d say keeping the level of consistency that you need for such a demanding show, you have to be on your A-game and really give 100% every night.
MA: We’re doing this eight times a week, so we have to make sure that we are at our best every show.

– Why is Disney’s stage production of The Lion King still so popular, nearly twenty-five years after it opened?

OC: I think it’s the show’s authenticity, and the level of detail that goes into this production; it’s such an incredible piece of theatre.
MA: There really is nothing else like it; I think that’s why people come back time and time again.

– What are you most looking forward to about performing in the West End?

MA: I think for me it’s getting to inspire people, especially those who are coming for the very first time.
OC: I think being able to tell our stories, through these characters, is something I’m really looking forward to.

Owen Chaponda and Merryl Ansah will be roaring at the Lyceum Theatre from 9 May 2023.

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SCUD 雲翔 | A RETROSPECTIVE (2008-2017)

Film

Notorious Hong Kong filmmaker Scud (writer, director, producer, and often subject of his movies) has been shocking Hong Kong and the world since 2008 with his queer, openly sexual films, and picking up a slew of awards along the way. Scud’s world is free of taboo, free of clothes, and free of anyone without 0% body fat. Here’s The Prickle’s deep dive into Scud’s filmography.

City Without Baseball 無野之城 (2008)

Scud’s award-laden debut is probably his finest work, and his least explicitly pornographic. A based-on-true-stories homoerotic biopic of the doomed Hong Kong baseball team (the least popular sport in Hong Kong), this film stars the actual team members — none of whom are actors — all playing themselves. What sounds like a recipe for disaster is somehow utterly compelling: with a base layer of wacky kitsch, the film sincerely captures the team’s irrepressible passion for the American sport, along with many thought-provoking moments about queerness, suicide, and Hong Kong identity.

Permanent Residence 永久居留 (2009)

Scud’s second movie is autobiographical, following Ivan (Sean Li)’s passionate, non-sexual relationship with troubled and chaotic, heterosexual Windson (Osman Hung). What could be clumsy gay-baiting in the wrong hands comes across here as truthful and finely observed. Even the film’s opening with a brief timeline, from childhood, of Ivan’s rags to riches tale, feels exciting rather than self-indulgent. Even though we know the gay-straight “couple” are doomed to unhappiness, the joy they experience throughout is our joy, too, which makes the tragedy all the more powerful.

Amphetamine 安非他命 (2010)

This film more than mirrors the previous: the set-up and story is the same. However, unlike his counterpart in Permanent Residence, this straight-man-in-love (Byron Pang) is also addicted to using amphetamine, which appears, at first, to offer a way for him to overcome his heterosexuality. Near the start, the straight-gay pair go together to visit an art gallery that is showcasing production shots from Scud’s film Permanent Residence. The swimming instructor explains that he was the model for the production shoot, but not the actor. This playfully meta framing prepares us for a more poetic and hallucinogenic examination of the same biography.

Love Actually… Sucks! 愛很爛 (2011)

Scud plays with audience’s expectations from beginning to end here, with a focus on the absolute most depraved and horrific spectrum of heterosexuality. A humorous wordplay on Love Actually (2003), everything starts as a fast-paced, zany back-and-forth between lots of farcical relationships in heightened reality. But it ends with a lonely murderer (Osman Hung) slowly climbing a mountain and finding a place for his lover’s (Linda So) severed head to rest. Meanwhile, the creeping incest between a brother (Christepher Wee) and sister (Sherry Li) is treated as light comic relief. Utterly bizarre and not for the squeamish.

Voyage 遊 (2013)

The ocean “voyage” of young psychiatrist Ryo (Ryo van Kooten) is a device used to tether together a series of short films shot across Asia, Australia and Europe. Each film retells the story of a young person dying before their time, often by suicide, with real dates and photos of the deceased shown in the credits. The film’s strongest suit is the opening short, “Messengers to the Heaven”, where student Yan (Byron Pang) slowly loses his mind in Inner Mongolia, during Mao’s re-education program. Despite the film’s high death count, what shines through is Scud’s trademark homoeroticism and exuberance for life.

Utopians 同流合烏 (2015)

This is an uncharacteristically crass film for Scud, even with an excellent cast drawing out some sensitive performances. The story revolves around an impossibly hot and wealthy ‘philosophy’ lecturer (Jacky Chow) whose job seems to revolve around wearing his shirt half-open, showing slides of naked men, and talking about how great life was in Ancient Greece. He preys on a naive university student (Adonis He Fei), taking him on lavish sexscapades around the world, until he gets arrested in Thailand for homosexual relations with a 20-year-old. A masturbation scene halfway through is explicitly, simplistically pornographic. The fact that the film reaches for some kind of profound message just makes it all the worse.

Thirty Years of Adonis 三十儿立 (2017)

This is Scud’s most “arthouse” work; highly stylised, and a shift away from straightforward narrative or message. In a signature meta move, the title’s “Adonis” is played by himself (Adonis He Fei), using footage from his lead role in Utopians (2015), but in a cruel and surreal alternate reality. An inscrutable sugar-daddy figure (Justin Lim) guides Adonis — a struggling Beijing opera performer — more and more into the world of sex work, which gets progressively more twisted as the film progresses, to the point of murder. However, the film’s overarching storyline is about karma, samsara, and the meaning of life, with an increasingly cosmic scope as the story continues. Absolutely not for the prudish, yet profoundly spiritual.

Scud is now retired.  Scud’s final movies Apostles (2022), Bodyshop (2022), and Naked Nations: Hong Kong Tribe are yet to be released.

Follow Artopians on Instagram and GagaOOLala.

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CRIMEA 5AM | London, Kiln Theatre

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This free-admission, one-night-only performance is part of the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute UK/Ukraine Season of Culture, is produced by Dash Arts and supported in kind by Kiln Theatre. A cast of actors, activists and journalists will stage a reading of Crimea 5am in the Kiln Cinema, followed by a post-show chat co-hosted by Index on Censorship.

Highlighting the stories of ten political prisoners and their families, Crimea 5am is an international project that brings together voices from an extraordinary community of women, bound together as a result of human rights violations against Crimean Tatars since 2014. Curated by Alim Aliev and Nadia Sokolenko, this moving verbatim play tells the story largely through a female perspective, and how the women have been empowered and changed through their experiences.

Since 2014, civil activists and in particular representatives of the indigenous people of the Crimean peninsula, Crimean Tatars, have been persecuted by Russian occupying forces. Obscured by a news blackout, we know little of these events, little of the prisoners themselves, their families and life in Crimea under occupation.

Crimea 5am celebrates the sheer determination and activism within this oppressed community, the bravery of the prisoners in documenting abuses, and its defiant women holding the ravaged community together.

Playing at the Kiln Theatre 7pm, Monday 16 January, 2023. Free admission.

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INTERVIEW: RICHARD CADELL (X-TREME MAGIC)

Interview

Richard Cadell is a British illusionist, puppeteer, actor and screenwriter, starring in the UK tour of X-treme Magic.

– Richard – as the star of X-treme Magic, what can audiences expect?

Forget card tricks and hankies – this is thrilling magic, the scale of which has never been seen in the UK before. We have uniquely combined circus skills and genuine danger with some of the most mind-boggling illusions ever imagined.

– Do you get nervous performing your death-defying stunts? What if something goes wrong?

That’s why I do it! That’s the thrill of it. I had one near miss a couple of years ago and if it wasn’t for the quick thinking of one of my assistants, I wouldn’t be here to tell the story. Let’s just say it involved a chainsaw. It gave me an immediate fear of that stunt but I had to overcome that and put it back in the show. I’ll be performing it on this X-treme Magic tour. It’s the only element of the show which nobody will insure me for.

– The show and the props were created in Las Vegas – tell us a little bit about that process, and how the show has been in rehearsals for two years.

I’ve been performing magic all my life, and also teaching it. Over twenty years ago, one of my students, Tim, moved to Las Vegas where he started creating illusions for the world’s greatest illusionist, David Copperfield. I was thrilled when Tim then agreed to build for me. I generally fly to Vegas once a year. We will come up with new ideas, and the props are then built over many months and shipped over. We then go into heavy rehearsals, and adjustments are made, in order to make everything perfect. And then it hits the stage!

– What is your favourite stunt to perform / part of the show?

Without doubt, the mid-air vanishing motorbike. I ride my bike into a cage which is hoisted into the air. You can see all the way around it, from every side. The audience are just feet away from it when I and the bike disappear. No covers – it all just melts away – it’s impossible. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s the one everyone talks about. It’s – dare I say – extreme!

Playing at the New Wimbledon Theatre 25 October 2022.

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ALEXANDRA PALACE FIREWORKS FESTIVAL | London

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Alexandra Palace’s Fireworks Festival is one of the biggest and best in the country; described as “the Glastonbury of fireworks” (ITV). On Saturday 5 November 2022, the venue will be taking on a full festival across its 196-acre park and historic palace, with outdoor live music, DJs and street food.

The legendary display will light up Ally Pally’s epic skyline, soundtracked by a specially curated playlist. There will be a huge family area, including a bonfire and fire shows. Visitors can also step inside the Palace, with the ice rink featuring an ice disco, while the Great Hall will be transformed, as is now tradition, into the UK’s largest German Bier Festival, featuring pulsating live music, including Europe’s leading Elvis tribute act, ‘One Night of Elvis’. The Palace’s award-winning theatre will host film screenings, while Gok Wan MBE headlines the DJ bill with a set of soulful and uplifting club classics.

“We’re going big,” says Simon Fell, Alexandra Palace’s Fireworks Festival director, “with a sensational display and massive bonfire. It’s a proper festival vibe with live music and street food, perfect for families. It’s going to be spectacular!”

The firework display will start at 8pm, but visitors can join the fun anytime from 4pm. Early birds can enjoy an up-close fire show by Tottenham-based Chivaree Circus, with the bonfire lit at 6:30pm. The party continues with food, drink and live music until 10:45pm.

Book online for Saturday 5 November 2022. Tickets £16.50.

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PICKLE | London, Park Theatre

Recommended

Two-word summary: it’s Jewish Fleabag. Yes, that world-dominating, award-winning sitcom started as one-hour, one-woman show, too. After captivating audiences during its sold-out performances in May, Pickle returns to the Park Theatre for a two-week run, in this cheeky and authentic exploration of what it means to be a young Jewish woman in London today.

Pickle is written and performed by Deli Segal, produced by Tanya Truman (Confessions of a Rabbi’s Daughter; Tier Three Sisters) and directed by Kayla Feldman (Swimming; Dear Peter), all female Jewish theatre-makers who strive to amplify Jewish voices on stage.

“Pickle is all about one woman’s experience of reconciling belief and tradition with change,” says Deli Segal, writer and performer. “I wanted to tell a story that explores being in the middle of both worlds: the parts that fit together, and the parts that don’t. The vibrancy, the spirit, the richness of culture, the humour of Jewish life – those things often get lost.”

Ari lives at home in North-West London, where her life is dominated by overbearing parents, tradition and expectations. However, her daily life includes her job, going out – and, inevitably, the dating scene. Pickle follows Ari as she tries to balance Friday night dinner with drinks at the pub, JSwipe with Hinge, being Jewish and secular. This uproarious simcha of a one-woman show explores a young Jewish woman’s psyche as she navigates her two contrasting worlds with irreverent humour and heart. Expect smoked salmon, guilt and a large dose of self-deprecation as Pickle brings Ari’s vibrant world to life.

Playing at the Park Theatre 14 – 26 November, 2022.

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