Quote • ‘THIS PRODUCTION CONTAINS SIGNIFICANT LONGEURS…’
‘If the audience were indeed entitled to know about elements that might alarm, distress or offend them, why should this be restricted to effects? No show is perfect, and shouldn’t … Continue reading
Quote • ROBERT BATHURST • Kindness
What is the kindest thing someone has done for you? I guess that would be my parents for never insisting I get a proper job. Robert Bathurst, actor, Waitrose Weekend … Continue reading
Quote • DAVID NIVEN • Acting
“Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games?” – David Niven, actor, novelist, English Source: “Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing … Continue reading
Quote • LARRY & JOHNNY
Laurence Olivier On Acting ‘John [Gielgud] is a very sweet man, but he seems to say rather more critical things about me than he does about Ralph. He probably wouldn’t … Continue reading
Quote • POST-SHOW ETIQUETTE
Brixton Stories and Happy Birthday, Mister Deka D: The Short and Happy Life of Ossic Jones (Modern Plays) “What should I say if they asked me what I thought of … Continue reading
![Will Self in 2013 [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/13323-will_self_reading_-1660-edit.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • WILL SELF • Suspending Disbelief
“At the best of times, as a professional suspender, I find it hard to suspend disbelief. It’s never Goneril for me – always a girl who went to RADA. I … Continue reading
Quote • ANTONY SHER • If I Were Mayor…
“[If I were Mayor for a day] I’d love to open up theatre to the public by making all plays free for the day. Not the big musicals, they can … Continue reading
![creenshot from Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize lecture, 27 December 2005 [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/harold-pinter-atp.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • PINTER and NO MAN’S LAND • Janet Street-Porter
‘No Man’s Land is a monumental waste of talent. [The play] is more than 30 years old and hasn’t worn well…. you leave the theatre repeating just two words: “what?” … Continue reading
![Olivia de Havilland - Studio publicity photo, 1938 [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/370px-olivia_de_havilland_publicity_photo_1938.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND • Life and Death
“If I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise longue, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a … Continue reading
Quote • MICHAEL CAINE • Gossip
“I’m very good at keeping secrets. I never tell anybody anything. I love listening to gossip but I never, ever repeat it. So the result is that I know everything … Continue reading
Quote • PINTER on ACTORS
“I think the image of actors as children, narcissistic and vain, is quite inaccurate. They’re very hard-working people, people with considerable imagination and intelligence on the whole. As a body … Continue reading
Quote • PATRICIA HODGE • Restoration Comedy
“I think Restoration comedy requires all the different resources that are within an actor. You’ve got to have clarity of thought and diction, and you need bravado, incredible focus, and … Continue reading
Quote • RANJIT BOLT • Kudos for Playwrights
“Because they’re French, writers often acquire a kudos denied our own dramatists. We don’t call Sheridan ‘maître’ but he was a major genius, in another league from Molière. Just imagine … Continue reading
![Marie Wilton (later Effie Bancroft) [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/440px-effie_bancroft.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • THE VICTORIAN WEST END
‘Visitors accustomed to dingy, dirty, uncomfortable theatres, as bad, if not worse, than the ordinary Paris theatres of today, were enchanted with the light, bright, joyous little playhouse, always compared … Continue reading
Quote • HELEN MIRREN on PAUL SCOFIELD
“He aspires to the soul rather than the character. He has no sense of personal ambition. He’s one of our great, great actors. We’re lucky to have him.” Helen Mirren … Continue reading
Quote • DAVID HARE on PAUL SCOFIELD
‘Paul Scofield… was the hardest actor to direct that I’d ever seen. Not because he was difficult–far from it–but because he gave you infinite possibility. With most actors you are … Continue reading
Quote • FRANCES DE LA TOUR • Acting
“I have an idealistic dream about painters and poets and musicians and what their lives are like. They do what they want to do, and we don’t. We do what … Continue reading
Quote • J M BARRIE • Stage Directions
When asked by an actor he had cast in a small role in What Every Woman Knows how he should play it, Sir James Barrie said: “I am glad you have … Continue reading
Quote • CASTING • Pride and Prejudice
Pride & Prejudice – 2005 [DVD] “We’re sick and tired of period dramas about first love but which feature actors in their late twenties or early thirties.” Paul Webster, co-producer … Continue reading
Quote • THEATRICAL DISASTERS • 2004
“If anyone else wakes up to sunshine they say, ‘Lovely day!’ If we wake up to it we say, ‘Oh shit!’” Bill Kenwright, producer, Blood Brothers, We Happy Few. “We’ve … Continue reading
![Morton at the 2008 Edinburgh Film Festival. [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/340px-samantha_morton.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • SAMANTHA MORTON • There’s Tough and There’s Tough
“They [actors] are moaning – but what for? They’ve got a job. It’s tough, the hours are tough, the corsets are tough. But try working in a factory for 16 … Continue reading
Quote • PETER O’TOOLE to TOM COURTENAY • The Seagull
“You’re playing Constantin? He’s a loser. He doesn’t get the girl. Still, it’s a nice part. Do it well and they’ll be round you like flies round shit.” Peter O’Toole … Continue reading
Quote • FELICITY KENDAL • Actor’s View
“When people say there are no parts for them, it’s not true. There are the parts – it is just the person complaining has not got the part. If you … Continue reading
Shakespeare 400: Quote • JOHN GIELGUD • Hamlet
‘Here is a Hamlet who seems to have pondered each line for its meaning as well as weighed it for its musical value, who points the wit, the agony, the … Continue reading
Quote • Victoria Wood
“I get a lot of pleasure from sitting in the audience and watching other people get laughs from my words. But I wouldn’t want just to write. I like writing, … Continue reading
![Hoskins during the filming of Ruby Blue in 2007 [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/bob_hoskins_filming_ruby_blue_cropped.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • BOB HOSKINS • Pete Postlethwaite
“Bob [Hoskins] was great but I don’t think he quite saw the point of iambic pentameter. He kept saying to Adrian Noble [adopts rough East-End accent], ‘Listen, Ade, you’ve got … Continue reading
![Postlethwaite at the Make Poverty History March in 2005 [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/pete_postlethwaite.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • NAT BRENNER TO PETE POSTLETHWAITE
“Of course, when you’ve got a face like a fucking stone archway, you can’t go wrong.” Nat Brenner, the then principal of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, to student … Continue reading
![Mrs. Sarah Siddons by Thomas Gainsborough [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/1024px-thomas_gainsborough_015.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • MRS SARAH SIDDONS • Thomas Gainsborough
“Confound the nose, there’s no end to it.” Thomas Gainsborough [1727 – 1788] on painting the actress Sarah Siddons [1755 – 1831] in 1785. The portrait was acquired by the … Continue reading
![Sir Donald Wolfit in May 1965 [Wikipedia]](https://roguesandvagabonds.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/donaldwolfit.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Quote • DONALD WOLFIT
“I absolve you!” A hapless ASM being forgiven by Sir Donald Wolfit [1902-1968] for forgetting to set a prop. Ned Sherrin’s Theatrical Anecdotes, Virgin 1991. Originally published on R&V 22-04-07
Quote • JOHN HURT on ALEC GUINNESS • Kind Hearts and Coronets
Kind Hearts And Coronets – Digitally Restored (80 Years of Ealing) [DVD] [1949] “I chose this film because Sir Alec Guinness proved for about the first time how effective an … Continue reading
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