Features
Jenny and Jane
Popular actress Jenny Agutter brings the era of Jane Austen to life at Richmond's Theatre Royal tonight, writes Keith Proud.
Comedy is king this week with visits by Brendon Burns and Ivan Brackenbury
JENNY Agutter will
forever be remembered
for her portrayal, at the
age of 18, of Roberta in
the 1970 Lionel Jeffries'
film of The Railway
Children, recreating her 1967 BBC
role from the timeless E Nesbit
story. Since then, she has enjoyed a
distinguished career in film,
television and on the stage. In her
latest film, Act of God, she stars
alongside David Suchet and Max
Brown.
One of her most vivid TV
memories is linked to the nearby
Yorkshire Moors and she says:
"Being a guest in a successful
television series is most enjoyable -
whether one's in Hawaii having a
case investigated by Tom Selleck as
Magnum, or in a remote part of the
Yorkshire moors hoping not to be
arrested by Nick Berry, the PC in
Heartbeat.
"There is an efficient but relaxed
atmosphere on set, which comes
from the crew and regular artists
knowing one another well. I played
Susannah Temple-Richards in Fair
Game, an episode in the fourth
series of Heartbeat for Yorkshire TV.
The backdrop for this vintage police
drama is Goathland, a rugged
moorland village where it is
impossible to receive any mobile
phone signals - a disadvantage' that
actually removes huge amounts of
pressure from filming. As little
contact could be made with the
outside world, we were just left to
get on with work. The episode was
wonderfully directed by Matthew
Evans, and mine was also a terrific
role," she says.
Her brief in Jane's Austen's World,
which plays Richmond's Georgian
Theatre Royal, tonight, is to
illustrate and illuminate the role of
women in the neo-Regency period of
1775 to 1817 during which one of
literature's greatest writers lived
and worked. It was also the period
when King George III was going
mad, the Prince of Wales was
sowing his wild oats with Mrs
Fitzherbert while building and
rebuilding the Brighton Pavilion
and the Napoleonic Wars were
devastating mainland Europe. And
life for young ladies in fashionable
English towns was made so much
more exciting by the presence of
dashing militia officers.
Agutter relates what women felt,
thought and were or were not
permitted to do by reading from the
writings of Fanny Burney, Maria
Edgeworth, Mary Wollstonecraft
and Miss Austen herself.
Accompaniment is from The
Ambache Chamber Ensemble, two
players who, since 1984, have
performed all over the world. The
two artists illustrating the music
favoured by Jane Austen are Diana
Ambache, piano, and Jeremy
Polmear, oboe. Their music includes
the work of Austen's
contemporaries Jane Guest, Maria
Hester Park, Antony le Fleming and
Madeleine Dring.
■ Jane Austen's World, An Evening
with Jenny Agutter & The Ambache
Chamber Ensemble, Georgian
Theatre Royal, Richmond, tonight
at 7.30pm
Box office: 01748-825252, Tickets:
£4.50-£15
HE'S been banned from the
BBC in the past for snogging
a goat and has handed out
mushrooms at Glastonbury, but
Australian stand-up Brendon Burns
arrives at Stockton's Arc tomorrow
night as the biggest hit of last year's
Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Festival.
The British-based comic took the
if.comedy award with his show, So I
Suppose This is Offensive Now,
which beat off over 600 other comics
to win live comedy's highest
accolade, the successor to the
Perrier. By good fortune he'd
already agreed to play the Saltburn
Community Theatre and
Darlington's Hilarity Bites Comedy
Club last October as part of a 25-date
autumn tour which quickly sold out.
Burns is busy filming a pilot TV
show for the BBC, with legendary
producer Jon Plowman, and he is
also set to record last year's
Edinburgh show in London's West
End for DVD release at Christmas.
■ Brendon Burns at The Arc,
Stockton, tomorrow. Tickets: £10-
£12.50. Box Office: 01642-525199
TOP hospital DJ Ivan
Brackenbury brings his Hospital
Radio Roadshow to Stockton
Community Theatre on Sunday. A
show which will be beamed back
live' to the fictional patients at the
fictional Chesterfield & North
Derbyshire Hospital whether they
like it or not.
The comic creation of real-life DJ
and TV presenter Tom Binns, Ivan
took Edinburgh by storm last year,
picking up a nomination for the
if.comedy award and winning the
alternative Spirit of the Fringe - the
prize won by Johnny Vegas a few
years ago.
He's also just been signed up by
Radio 2's comedy unit for his own
show later this year.
Promoter Rob O'Connor says:
"This is character comedy at its very
best. Ivan models himself on a
terrible mix of Timmy Mallet and
Pat Sharp, and tries desperately to
recreate the so-called golden days of
cheesy Radio 1 DJs. He's determined
to entertain, even if the patients
don't really fancy it."
Compering the gig will be
Saltburn's James Harris, who has
just been snapped up by BBC3 to
produce a batch of animated short
cartoons.
* Ivan Brackenbury, Saltburn
Community Theatre, Sunday, 8pm.
Tickets, £10, available from
Saltburn Health Foods, or call
01642-729729. www.tenfeettall.co.uk
or view clips at
www.myspace.com/hospitalradioro
adshow
9:58am Thursday 17th April 2008
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