Immigration off icials kept Rickman from Bowie show
DO US immigration officials have something against David Bowie and Alan Rickman – or is it just Irish writers they don’t like?
After the death of the two artistic greats this week, it is frustrating to reveal that officious border bureaucrats denied them the chance to work together shortly before they died.
In what would have poignantly been Rickman’s final role, the 69-year-old actor was due to narrate the Bowie off-Broadway musical Lazarus, written in Irish playwright Enda Walsh, in November. But the immigration officials refused to grant a visa to Rickman. This was an uncomfortable echo of events in 2014, when the officials did the same to Rickman’s Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe, who was to star in The Cripple Of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh. But in that case, the mandarins finally bowed to Radcliffe, having been persuaded by glowing reviews of his performance from the West End run of the play.
Rickman, who starred in Michael Collins, Die Hard and the Harry Potter films, was left out in the cold, even though his role would only have been recorded and then projected on to a screen on stage.
In the end, Scots-born Alan Cumming, who became a US citizen in 2008, narrated the part.
Lazarus, which is a sequel to Bowie’s 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth, has proved a big success at the New York Theatre Workshop. The play’s producer Robert Fox was left frustrated and angry by the blocking of Rickman.
He said: ‘I am aware that the New York Theatre Workshop were working hard to get past visa issues for Alan.’ Another source said: ‘Rickman, unlike Cumming, is not an American citizen and overzealous US immigration authorities were insistent that the small video role could just as easily have been recorded by an American performer.
‘Rickman was really excited about doing it but he and Bowie were stifled by Uncle Sam and he was fuming. The production staff had a huge row with US immigration, but it was to no avail.’