The Week in Light & Sound
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According to Queen’s Roger Taylor and Brian May, who are serving as executive music producers, “Rami has great presence and he’s utterly dedicated to the project. He’s completely living and breathing Freddie already, which is wonderful.” Bryan Singer is directing, and the film is “as-close-as-that” to the start of shooting, with pre-production beginning this week to prepare for principal photography in London as soon as mid-September.
City Break - Coventry, Paisley, Sunderland, Swansea and Stoke-on-Trent will compete to host a year-long celebration of art and performance as UK City of Culture 2021.The five locations are on a shortlist for the title, but six other bidding towns and cities missed out. The five left in the race will hope to emulate the success of Hull, which is UK City of Culture this year.
Unmasked - Andrew Lloyd Webber is writing a memoir looking back over his life and career. The autobiography, entitled Unmasked, will be published by HarperCollins in March 2018. Lloyd Webber will give insight into his family life, the musicals he wrote as a child and his decision to leave school to pursue a musical career. A description of the book reads: “In Unmasked, internationally acclaimed composer Andrew Lloyd Webber looks back over more than five decades in the spotlight as he recounts his fascinating life and remarkable career.
The description adds: “Webber illuminates his creative process and takes us behind the scenes of his productions, sharing fascinating details about the shows and the rich cast of characters involved in making them hits. Unmasked at last reveals the true face of the extraordinary man beneath the storied legend.”
Chilled Out - The Royal Shakespeare Company is launching a new type of accessible performance, aimed at creating a more casual and informal atmosphere without altering the production. It will stage its first ‘chilled performance’, of Shakespeare poem Venus and Adonis, on 1 August in the Swan Theatre. The performance will be characterised by a more casual approach to noise and movement in the auditorium. However, the performance itself will be unchanged.
Chilled performances are aimed at people who feel more at ease knowing they are able to leave the auditorium at any time. These include people with dementia and people with babes in arms. They are similar to relaxed performances, which the RSC already runs. However, unlike relaxed performances they do not make any changes to the production, such as reducing sound volume, turning up the lights or providing break-out areas.
RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, who is directing Venus and Adonis, said: "We believe that theatre is for everyone and as a company are committed to engaging as many people as possible with our work. A chilled performance allows people the opportunity to go to a show they may not have previously had the opportunity to see, so we are delighted to be able to provide this new offer.”
(Jim Evans)
18 July 2017
