From Downton to‘the mother of all roles’
Downton star Joanne Froggatt is recharging her batteries by returning to the stage to work with theatre chieftain nicholas Hytner on the ‘mother of all roles’.
the actress will lead the adaptation of Harriet Lane’s bestseller Alys, Always, playing the book’s calculating and slightly creepy narrator, journalist Frances thorpe who, when we first meet her, is comforting a woman trapped and fatally injured in a car crash.
She thinks the woman’s name is Alice. But it’s Alys. And she turns out to have been the wife of a renowned novelist.
Hytner, who will direct the play at the Bridge theatre, told me that it’s a ‘big mother of a role, a huge part’. He said Lucinda Croxton’s script of Lane’s book was like ‘Howards End meets All About Eve’, in that someone from a different class insinuates themselves into a more rarefied lifestyle.
the play, which Hytner will direct, will run at the Bridge from February 25. Froggatt is an accomplished stage actress, but the part of Frances is going to be massive. ‘I’m so excited to be returning with this brilliant new play,’ she texted me from the set of the film version of Downton Abbey, in which she plays Anna Bates. She added it was ‘an honour’ to be working with Hytner and his team.
the final episode of Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes and shown two years ago, was set in 1925. the big screen version will pick up the story in 1927.
Froggatt will shoot a second series of ItV’s hit Liar before turning to Alys, Always.
Bridge priority members can book from 10am today; other tickets go on sale from next wednesday.
LAurA LInnEy will return to the Bridge with My name Is Lucy Barton. the acclaimed one-woman show, which played there earlier this year, will run from January 23 until February 16.
My ecstatic bedroom encounter with Liam Neeson . . .
ViolA DAviS said it was ‘ middleaged female joy’ bedding liam Neeson in their first film together. The two actors play husband and wife Harry and veronica rawlins in director Steve McQueen’s rollicking thriller widows. The movie is based on lynda la plante’s landmark eighties iTv drama about four women who gamble everything and take over a daring heist earmarked for their recently departed husbands. ‘it was ecstatic — revelatory in so many ways,’ the Academy Award-winning star (pictured left) told me of her screen time with Neeson, when we met at Claridge’s in Mayfair on wednesday. Momentous, too, for ‘ a darkskinned 53-year-old woman with her natural hair’ to find herself in bed with ‘the Caucasian hunk’, particularly given the circumstances. ‘He’s not my slave owner. i’m not a prostitute — so he’s not my john. And it’s not meant to make a political statement. it’s just meant to be,’ declared the actress who starred in The Help, fences, and hit television series How To Get Away with Murder as take-no-prisoners lawyer Annalise Keating. it’s a fabulous role, with Davis’s veronica by turns steely and vulnerable, as she and fellow gang members elizabeth Debicki, Michelle rodriguez and Cynthia erivo prepare for the heist. She notes that though the part wasn’t written specifically for a black woman, ‘it’s written in a way that’s way more human and way more realised’ than many generic female roles. it’s also rare for four women to control a dramatic movie (‘it’s not a comedy and you’re not at a slumber party’). i reckoned that her veronica rawlins would win a bout with Donald Trump. Davis laughed but took issue with that assertion and said Annalise Keating would be the woman most likely to ‘slap Trump in the face’. She said the women in widows, which writer Gillian flynn (Gone Girl and Sharp objects) and McQueen have relocated to Chicago, have to go through a period of ‘anxiety and chaos’ before there’s change in their lives. She said it’s the same in real life. women ‘can only get back their ownership by busting out of societal norms’ and by being ‘so-called bad’. one thing that could help, she said, ‘is finding out what my value is beyond my age, my race and my desirability to men’. one of her pet peeves, she said, is the way some folks equate good looks with good values.
‘You know, there’s that line . . . “She had so much going for her, because she was so beautiful.” And you just want to say: “Did she have anything else going for her? other than the fact she’s beautiful?” ’
She warned that no matter how much women try to protect themselves, there are still barriers. ‘it’s amazing how you can tell the truth, and no one believes you,’ she said, referring to the accusations of sexual assault made by Christine Blasey ford against u.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
‘i certainly believed her,’ said Davis before observing that she’s also on the side of the millions of women and girls ‘who are abused and trafficked and raped by pimps and gangs’.
‘women have been devalued and sexually assaulted since the dawn of time. The issues concerning #MeToo and Time’s up didn’t just happen.’
AND as much as it’s about bringing predators to book, she said it should also be about ensuring women get help to deal with the traumatic effects of sexual assault.
it sort of took us back to widows, and how four women rediscover their worth. ‘i’m very proud of the experience i had making this film,’ viola told me.
Next up for Davis will be a film about Shirley Chisholm (motto: unbossed And unbought), the first African-American woman elected to Congress — and the first woman to seek the Democratic party’s presidential nomination.
After which she might succumb to producer Scott rudin’s powers of persuasion, and head back to Broadway — to play Hedda Gabler.