Carolyn Seymour at Folkestone Film TV & Comic Con

CAROLYN SEYMOUR (ABBY Grant) appears at the sixth annual Folkestone Film TV & Comic Con (FFTCC) this weekend.

Seymour will be signing autographs (for a £15.00 fee) and chatting with fans during the event at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone, Kent on both Saturday 12 May and Sunday 13 May 2018.

In unrelated news, Getty Images have increased the number of archival (and more recent) photos of Seymour available from the photo agency. The images are free to embed (as below), with fees applying to include them in online and print publications.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Simply Media to release The Mad Death rabies drama

The Mad Death - DVD cover

THE THREE-PART 1983 BBC rabies drama The Mad Death, starring Survivors‘ Richard Heffer (Jimmy Garland) will be released for the first time ever on DVD on 7 May 2018, courtesy of Simply Media.

The drama, which also features Barbara Kellerman (1990) and Ed Bishop (UFO), focuses on the efforts of Chief Veterinary Officer Michael Hilliard (Heffer) to contain an outbreak of rabies in rural Scotland, triggered when a tourist smuggles their infected pet back into the country.

As is standard practice with Simply Media genre DVDs, The Mad Death will be a vanilla release, without any special features or supporting material. Full details can be found in the Simply Media catalogue listing for the release.

The Mad Death

The BBC’s nightmarish vision of Britain under attack by a rabies outbreak. Starring Richard Heffer, Barbara Kellerman and Ed Bishop.

Directed by BAFTA-nominee Robert Young, The Mad Death is a disturbing and chilling three-part thriller that examined in terrifying detail the potential consequences of a rabies outbreak in Britain. Shown in 1983 at the height of Britain’s paranoia about the potential outbreak of the disease.

When a tourist from France cannot bear to leave her cat at home while she travels on holiday, she smuggles it in to Scotland for her trip. But what she doesn’t know is her pet is infected with a deadly disease, which goes unnoticed as it infects the animal population. The Mad Death has already spread far when it is finally noticed when it claims its first human victim.

This sparks off a deadly rabies outbreak, which threatens to attack the entire nation. Michael Hillard (Richard Heffer) and Ann Maitland (Barbara Kellerman) join forces to fight the dreadful disease, with one trying to contain the outbreak, and the other trying to trace the virus back to its source to save others from an agonising death.

What the press Said: “a dark and sometimes shocking plot which is driven by some powerful performances. The emotional impact of certain scenes is enough to ensure you won’t forget the serial any time soon.” – Curious British Telly

Format: DVD
Release Date: 7th May 2018
Run Time: 3 hours
Discs: 1
Language: English (with English Subtitles)

Denis Lill on tour in The Case of the Frightened Lady

The Case of the Frightened Lady poster - portrait

DENIS LILL HAS recently begun a national theatre tour in a Classic Thriller Company production of The Case of the Frightened Lady. This latest production from the company is an adaptation of Edgar Wallace’s acclaimed murder mystery, and includes in its ensemble many of the same cast members that Lill has appeared with in previous touring productions by the Agatha Christie Company, including Witness for the Prosection, Death on the Nile and Then There Were None.

When Inspector Tanner is called in to investigate a ruthless murder at Mark’s Priory, the grand ancestral home of the Lebanon family, he quickly discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. The household is controlled by the family physician, the footmen behave more like guests than servants and the secretary Isla is afraid for her life. As Tanner moves closer to the heart of the mystery he uncovers a shocking and closely guarded secret…

Building on the phenomenal decade long success of The Agatha Christie Company, which sold over two million tickets around the UK, comes a new thrilling chapter. Following this year’s acclaimed production of Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone, the Classic Thriller Company returns with a brand new adaption from the legendary “King of the detective thriller”, EDGAR WALLACE – the brains behind one of the most iconic films of all time, KING KONG.

Widely recognised as the most popular writer of the early 20th century, Edgar Wallace’s gripping page-turners are regarded as the bedrock of the modern thriller and The Case of the Frightened Lady remains one of his most celebrated works. Adapted for film several times, this is your chance to catch this chilling, captivating and complex thriller live on stage…

The Case of the Frightened Lady poster - landscape

The tour got off to an excellent start, with the opening run at The Theatre Royal in Windsow earning a rave review in the Slough Observer. Performances across the ensemble cast all garnered praise, with Denis Lill “from long-running drama The Royal and Only Fools and Horses” described as “wonderful” in the role of Dr Amersham.

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Book tickets

29 Jan-3 Feb Weston-Super-Mare Playhouse 01934 645544 Book
online

5 – 10 Feb Guildford, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre 01483 440000 Book
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12 – 17 Feb Crawley, The Hawth Theatre 01293 553636 Book
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19 – 24 Feb Aylesbury Waterside Theatre 08448 717627 Book
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26 Feb-3 Mar Chesterfield Pomegranate 01246 345222 Book
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5 – 10 Mar Cardiff, New Theatre 02920 878889 Book
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12 – 17 Mar Barnstaple Queens Theatre 01271 316063 Book
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19 – 24 Mar Stoke-on-Trent, Regent Theatre 08448 717649 Book
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26 – 31 Mar Edinburgh, Kings Theatre 01315 296000 Book
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3 – 7 Apr Woking, New Victoria Theatre 08448 717645 Book
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21 – 26 May Milton Keynes Theatre 08448 717652 Book
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11 – 16 Jun Coventry, Belgrade Theatre 024 7655 3055 Book
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18 – 23 Jun Southend Palace Theatre 01702 351135 Book
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2 – 8 Jul Swansea Grand Theatre 01792 475715 Book
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23 – 28 Jul Leeds Grand Theatre 08448 482700 Book
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30 Jul – 4 Aug Bury St Edmonds, Theatre Royal 01284 769505 Book
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2 – 6 Oct Glasgow, Theatre Royal 08448 717647 Book
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More live dates for Lucy Fleming’s and Simon Williams’ Posting Letters to the Moon

Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams in Posting Letters to the Moon

LUCY FLEMING AND Simon Williams will appear on stage together in additional spoken-word performances of Posting Letters to the Moon, a reading of the wartime letters between the actress Ceila Johnson and her husband Peter Fleming.

A romantic, funny and very touching portrait of life during the early 1940s featuring readings of wartime letters between Oscar-nominated actress Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) and her explorer and writer husband Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming).

The letters read by their daughter Lucy Fleming (Miranda in The Archers, Survivors) and her husband Simon Williams (Justin in The Archers, EastEnders, Upstairs Downstairs) are full of love and warmth and we get an insight into a young mother’s life whose husband has gone to war.

‘…this intimate and simply spellbinding performance … revealing an abundance of love and affection between ordinary people caught in extraordinary times.’ British Theatre Guide, March 2017

Posting Letters to the Moon logo

Dates

TIVOLI THEATRE, WIMBORNE – MATINÉE
Sunday, 11 March 2018
3.00 pm – 4.20 pm
19 West Borough, Wimborne BH21 1LT
01202 885566
https://www.tivoliwimborne.co.uk
Tickets £15/discounts (plus booking fees)

YVONNE ARNAUD THEATRE, GUILDFORD
Thursday, 22 March 2018
7.45 pm – 9.15 pm
Millbrook, Guildford GU1 3UX
+44 (0)1483 44 00 00
http://www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk/
Tickets £17 (inc of booking fees)

THE MILL AT SONNING THEATRE
Wednesday, 11 April 2018
4 pm
Sonning Eye, Reading RG4 6TY
0118 969 8000
http://www.millatsonning.com/
Tickets £20.00 to include a glass of Champagne served on stage with a Q & A after the show.

CHIPPING NORTON THEATRE, CHIPPING NORTON
Thursday, 12 April 2018
7.45 pm – 9.00 pm
Chipping Norton Theatre
2 Spring Street,
Chipping Norton
OX7 5NL
01608 642350
http://www.chippingnortontheatre.com
Tickets £12.50/£10.50 concessions (plus booking fees)

FORUM THEATRE, MALVERN
Saturday, 19 May 2018
7.45 pm – 9.15 pm
01684 569256
Grange Rd, Malvern WR14 3HB
http://www.malvern-theatres.co.uk

DEVIZES ARTS FESTIVAL
Tuesday, June 12 2018
7.30pm
Assembly Room
Devizes Town Hall

Abby and Jenny reunited in new Big Finish Survivors audios

Carolyn Seymour - Ian McCulloch - Lucy Fleming

In an exclusive interview, Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) and Lucy Fleming (Jenny Richards) discuss their characters’ fraught and emotional reunion in the closing episode of the new series of Big Finish’s Survivors audio adventures.

FOLLOWING ON FROM the finale of series six “Lockdown”, which saw Abby Grant track down Greg Preston, series seven of Big Finish’s new Survivors audio dramas delivers the no-less-anticipated reunion of Abby Grant and Jenny Richards. The two leading female characters from the original TV series meet up in the episode “Reconnection”, written by Christopher Hatherall, which unfolds some months after the closing canonical instalment of the TV series “Power”.

In a break in recording, Lucy Fleming (Jenny) is quick to praise Hatherall and his fellow scriptwriters working on this latest series. “Big Finish are a very special lot of people, and they work so hard,” she says. “The quality of the writing, and the thought that goes into which way to take the story forward, is incredible.”

Carolyn Seymour (Abby) readily concurs. “The people who write this stuff are just amazing,” she enthuses. That writing team has “got to know the characters,” says Fleming “and know how to write to their individual strengths and weaknesses.” On a series with such “dark” subject matter, the writers understand the importance of lighter moments too. “Finding humour in very tough situations – because we do have, in these scripts, very tough situations – really helps, I think,” she adds.

The reunion of these characters, both emotionally scarred by the experience of loss, is not an immediately happy one, as the pair fling accusations at each other and Abby (temporarily) retreats into drunken self-recrimination. “What I like, in these very action-packed stories, are the quieter and more intimate scenes, like the very challenging one we’re about to record,” Fleming explains. It’s in those reflective moments that the stories “explore the real problems that people are having to confront in this new world,” she says.

Big Finish have responded to Lucy Fleming’s request to have Jenny’s more pro-active, independent side highlighted

Seymour agrees. “I think what’s really interesting about this episode is how it unfolds on a very truthful level,” she says. “It’s not abstract, it really gets to the nitty-gritty.” As the two survivors seek to reconcile their differences, Seymour says that scriptwriter Hatherall “has decided that we’re not going to be able to skirt over important issues that we have to deal with.” It’s an approach that makes for some intentionally disquieting and some “quite uncomfortable” listening, she says. In the end, each character understands that “one of them will always end up supporting the other,” a recognition that rekindles their close connection and mutual dependence.

Fleming is pleased that Big Finish have responded to her request to have Jenny’s more pro-active, independent side highlighted and her domestic responsibilities downplayed. “It’s very gratifying,” she says. “And I think it’s the right call. In those sort of situations, you would become more resourceful and want to get out and do more demanding things, rather than stay at home and do the boring stuff.” Seymour is not immediately convinced. “Well, Lucy might,” she suggests. “I’d be quite happy to have Abby stay at home by the fire,” she jokes. “Jenny could be out there chopping wood and ploughing the fields!”

The pair are just as impressed with the calibre of the guest actors brought in to work on the show. “They’re so clever at getting fantastic supporting cast in,” Seymour says. “I’m just stunned at the level of talent.” With recording on series seven largely completed back-to-back with series six, it proved to be a lengthier studio commitment than normal. “I had one episode a couple of weeks ago, and then this one, and then one ages ago. So, it’s nicely spread out for me, which I prefer actually,” says Fleming. Seymour, in contrast, had recorded three episodes in as many intensive days. “That doesn’t matter to me,” she says. “It’s great. I love it.” Fleming is unsurprised. “Nothing phases Carolyn,” she suggests.

As the events of “Reconnection” conclude, the framework of the TV series has well and truly been left behind. Had either of them ever wondered what had become of their characters after the end of the television timeline? “We did talk about that a lot, at the time, when we were making the TV series,” Seymour recalls. “We wondered what our trio might go on to do next. But once I left, I stopped.” Fleming suggests that the focus was much more short-term than that. “It was really all about surviving,” she says. “There wasn’t really much thinking about ‘OK, in an ideal world, what would you do next?’ It remained a question of how – and if – you would survive.”

If Abby and Jenny are going to be together, and running a commune, then it means that things need to move ahead,” Seymour affirms

With the story arcs for series eight and nine still under wraps, neither know for certain if the following two Survivors box-sets will push the timeline on into the future. “I think they’re planning to keep things going forward,” Fleming suggests. “If Abby and Jenny are going to be together, and running a commune, then it means that things need to move ahead,” Seymour affirms. “That way we could get to deal with more of what the end part of the first TV series was all about.”

What would that mean for the character of Greg Preston (played by Ian McCulloch), who features in series seven in flashback, and via tape recordings, in Simon Clark’s “Legacy”? Greg is reported to have died by the time of the penultimate television episode “Long Live the King”. “I don’t know, actually,” Fleming admits. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

* The seventh series of Big Finish’s Survivors audio adventures is out now, and available to buy in both CD and digital download formats.

Big Finish - Survivors - series seven - cover

Series six of Survivors audio adventures reviewed in Starburst magazine

My review of series six of Big Finish’s Survivors audio dramas is published today in the online edition of Starburst magazine. The review, which awards a maximum ten-out-of-ten, rating observes:

After five extraordinarily well-received box sets, each of which offered a self-contained and themed collection of four episodes, the sixth series of Survivors audio adventures confidently takes a fresh approach. This new release offers a quartet of single adventures, all set within the timeline of the third television series, which follow the parallel exploits of Abby Grant, Jenny Richards and Greg Preston before delivering an unexpected reunion in the closing story. It’s a liberating shift in format and, under the keenly judged direction of Ken Bentley, these scripts make exceptional use of the opportunity to tell diverse, if equally compelling, standalone stories.

Series six is available to buy on the Big Finish web site (alongside the previous five series and Carolyn Seymour’s reading of Terry Nation’s 1976 Survivors novel). Series seven (November 2017), eight (June 2018) and nine (November 2018) are also available for pre-order.

Survivors - Big Finish - series six - slipcase

Starburst preview of series six of Survivors audio adventures

A two-page, full-colour feature, previewing the sixth series of Big Finish’s Survivors audio adventures released later this month, appears in the new edition of Starburst magazine (Issue 438). The feature includes comments from producer David Richardson and from scriptwriters Andrew Smith, Christopher Hatherall and Simon Clark.

Starburst #438 - Big Finish - Survivors - series six - preview

Rich Cross. 2017. ‘True Survivors can stand alone’, Starburst, Issue 438, June, pp. 52-53.

Series six remains available for pre-order on the Big Finish web site (alongside the previous five series and Carolyn Seymour’s reading of Terry Nation’s 1976 Survivors novel). Series seven (November 2017), eight (June 2018) and nine (November 2018) are also available for pre-order.

Posting Letters to the Moon – Nettlebed Village – 21 April 2017

The Henley Standard has published a preview of the performance of Posting Letters to the Moon at Nettlebed Village Club on Friday (21 April 2017). Based on interviews with Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams, the feature hints at possible future performances after what is the last date in the current tour schedule.

Posting Letters to the Moon is a reading of the wartime letters between the actress Ceila Johnson and her husband Peter Fleming read by their daughter Lucy Fleming, with Simon Williams.

A brief encounter with Celia’s letters

Lucy Fleming - Simon Williams

THE wartime letters of the actress Celia Johnson and her husband Peter Fleming are the focus of a special fundraising performance at Nettlebed Village Club later this month.

The couple’s youngest daughter Lucy Fleming will be joined by her husband — and fellow actor — Simon Williams for a reading of the letters in aid of the venue’s roof fund on Friday, April 21.

The show, entitled Posting Letters to the Moon, has been performed a number of times previously — most recently at Carnforth railway station in Lancashire, where many of the scenes for David Lean’s classic 1945 film Brief Encounter, in which Celia starred opposite Trevor Howard, were shot.

But this is the first time the piece has been performed in Nettlebed — just down the road from where Celia was living at Joyce Grove at the time of the letters’ composition.

Following the outbreak of war, she had found herself separated from her husband, who was away on active service for long periods, but the couple wrote to each other regularly.

Touching and amusing by turns, Celia’s letters tell of her experiences during the war — from coping with a large, isolated house full of evacuated children, to learning to drive a tractor, dealing with rationing, learning to surf during occasional holidays in Cornwall, and all the while accepting offers — when she could get away — to act.

Unable to commit to the often lengthy run of a stage play, she preferred the less time-consuming schedules of film and radio.

These allowed her to devote time to her family and her work for the Women’s Auxiliary Police Corps in Henley.

In addition to a number of patriotic wartime propaganda films and broadcasts, Celia’s most notable films of the period were In Which We Serve (1942) and This Happy Breed (1944), both of which — like Brief Encounter — were written by Noël Coward and directed by David Lean.

In the letters, Peter, the brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, writes about his adventures and trials working on military deception operations in India and the Far East.

Lucy, who put Posting Letters to the Moon together with her sister Kate Grimond, said: “It was a joy to discover these letters, and I hope the audience will find them as funny and moving as I do.

“The title is explained in the show. It refers to the difficulty of knowing how to get letters to my father, who was away for most of the war.”

Lucy and Simon’s appearance at Nettlebed is only the latest in a series of joint acting ventures.

The couple can currently be seen in cinemas playing Lord and Lady Wavell in Viceroy’s House, about the 1947 partition of India.

They also play estranged husband and wife Justin and Miranda Elliott in The Archers on Radio 4.

The April 21 performance of Posting Letters to the Moon will include an audience Q&A session — and Simon anticipates that a few questions about Ambridge might come up on the night.

He said: “Lucy plays my horrible wife, who I’m leaving in the story — it seems I’m divorcing her. Justin’s having an affair and I’ve asked Lillian [Archer], who’s a very popular character, to marry me, so there’s all kinds of things going on and a lot of people who come to see the readings are very keen to find out what’s going to happen!”

While Simon clearly enjoys every minute of working on the long-running Radio 4 soap, projects like Posting Letters to the Moon are much closer to home.

Lucy’s close resemblance to her mother, who died in 1982, has often been remarked upon — and Simon says this is something that is further brought out by the readings.

“She sounds incredibly like her. Which is why the letters are so moving, really. You can actually hear Celia’s voice — you know, that voice from Brief Encounter — you can hear it.

“She has a wonderful, light way of coping with emotion and such a lovely light sense of humour.

“The letters are wonderful — they describe what it’s like trying to be a young newlywed with a young family living in a great big house with lots of other children.

“And she was a policewoman in Henley and she was trying to plough and help run the farm with tractors and things.

“And then she was off making the films she made during the war and doing propaganda broadcasts and things.”

It sounds as though Celia — who was awarded a CBE in 1958 for services to the theatre, later becoming a Dame Commander — was juggling rather a lot during the war years.

“She absolutely was,” says Simon. “And all that on fuel rationing and food rationing and things. So the letters are full of interesting history as well as being funny and touching and romantic, you know? They’re wonderful.”

In keeping with the fundraising nature of the enterprise, the staging of Posting Letters to the Moon will be fairly minimal.

“This is just Lucy and me sitting on stools and reading the letters and filling in the gaps and the history and things,” says Simon.

“We’ve done it a few times in different venues and it’s a wonderful mix of history and lightheartedness — and bravery, you know? They were so brave.”

Simon, who has been married to Lucy for 31 years, will be reading the letters home written by his late father-in-law, who died in 1971. He said he had known Peter growing up, as their families were friends.

Much of Peter’s war service was highly secret at the time, but some details nevertheless emerge from the letters.

“He was in the Far East,” says Simon. “He was in Norway and then he was in North Africa and then he was mostly in India and Delhi — working, funnily enough, for Lord Wavell, who I played in Viceroy’s House.

“But there’s not so much history in his letters because obviously his letters were censored, you know? There’s interesting background stuff about the war, but the details of what he was doing, he obviously wasn’t allowed to expand on that.”

The family thread that runs through the event extends to Nettlebed Village Club itself, as Simon acknowledges.

“Lucy’s great-grandfather [Robert Fleming] built the club, and so it seems rather fitting that we should be fundraising to get the roof rebuilt. It’s a wonderful great big building.”

Dating from 1913, the club is in need of a complete new roof at an estimated cost of £240,000.

A community grant has been awarded to the project by South Oxfordshire District Council and together with local donations and club funds the total raised so far is approximately £160,000.

With £80,000 still to be raised, various other fundraising events are being arranged and work is expected to start in the summer.

As well as being home to the Nettlebed Folk Song Club and Sam Brown’s Fabulous Ukulele Club, the club building — consisting of a large hall, a small hall, a bar and a billiard room — is used for a wide range of functions and community activities.

“We have weddings and we have quiz nights and we have bingo nights and we have dances and discos and stuff,” says Simon. “It’s always in use, you know? And it’s always there for people to hire if they want it.”

For Simon, looking ahead to the Nettlebed Village Club performance of Posting Letters to the Moon, there is something else that Celia and Peter’s letters have to offer us today.

“The beauty of it really is that people don’t write wonderful letters now — a letter that has pen and ink and news and sentiment. They just send a little emoji, you know, on their texts on their mobile phones. It’s not quite as eloquent.”

With a seated capacity of around 227, Simon says that tickets for the show have been “selling quite well”, adding: “If they sell too well, we’ll just have to do the show again some time. We might do it as part of the Henley Literary Festival — or we might do it in The Studio at the Kenton.”

Tickets for Posting Letters to the Moon are priced £15. Doors open at 7.30pm for 8pm and the club’s bar is open from 7.15pm.

To book, call Nettlebed Village Club treasurer Sue Worth on 0118 934 5960 or visit http://www.buytickets.at/nettlebedclub/89109

Tanks vs squirrels…

“THERE is a fair amount of quiet din, going on in the distance. I think they must be rumbling up the tanks.

“I saw a mass of these monsters parked along the woods near Joyce Grove. One, roughly the size of the Albert Hall was rather charmingly named Cupid.

“I don’t know why I tell you all about this imitation battle when you know all too much about real ones but at the moment it impinges on our life and it makes a change when walking to the village to see tanks instead of squirrels.

“I really prefer squirrels but I can visualise a moment when I’d rather see a Cupid.”

— Celia Johnson to Peter Fleming,
March 9, 1943

 

Henley Standard. 2017. ‘A brief encounter with Celia’s letters’, Henley Standard, 10 April, http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/theatre/107993/a-brief-encounter-with-celia-s-letters.html

Posting Letters to the Moon – new dates, new web site

Posting Letters to the Moon - web site

Additional dates have been added to the short tour of Posting Letters to the Moon, and a mini-website has been set up to promote current and future appearances.

In addition to the dates, previously advertised on this site, additional readings of the wartime letters between Fleming’s mother Celia Johnson and her husband Peter Fleming read by Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams have been confirmed:

ALHAMBRA CINEMA, KESWICK
Sunday, March 5, 2017
18:30-21:30
Includes a screening of Brief Encounter
£15 per head including refreshments, live performance and film
W: Keswick Alhambra | E: alhambracinema@gmail.com | T: 01768 772195

UPSTAIRS @ THE GATHER, ENNERDALE CENTRE
Ennerdale Bridge CA23 3AJ
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
19:30-21:30
The Gather Ennerdale Centre
£8 per head (plus book fee) via Eventbrite
E: bookings@ennerdalecentre.com | T: 01946 862453

NETTLEBED VILLAGE CLUB
Nettlebed Village Club, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 5DD
Friday, 21 April
19.30 for 20.00
Tickets £15 | Please ring Sue on 01189 345 960 for ticket details
Charity Evening to raise money for the Nettlebed Club’s Roof Fund

The Posting Letters to the Moon tour is previewed in Cumbria Life:

Posting Letters to the Moon - Cumbria Life
Image by Angela Jackson.

The reading of Posting Letters to the Moon at The Dukes, Lancaster on 1 March is reviewed on the British Theatre Guide site

Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams come steeped in their own theatrical fame, either from stage, film or TV appearances, or on radio in The Archers. This very week they both also appear in new cinema release The Viceroy’s House, which just happens to be set in New Delhi where her father was stationed.

So she can be excused if her voice just occasionally falters as she reads her mother’s adoring words of love to her father. Some people may think it was just acting, but a sold-out auditorium knew otherwise—and promptly stifled its own sniffles when her husband joked: “Pull yourself together!”

It was that kind of evening, one of sharing in another family’s heartfelt love.

An image from the Getty Images archive, pictures Peter Fleming, Celia Johnson and a young Lucy Fleming in 1955:

 

The Posting Letters to the Moon tour is covered in:

Carolyn Seymour narrates Jack Gerson’s ‘The Fetch’ for Big Finish

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Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant, Survivors) narrates a new audio-book version of Jack Gerson’s thriller The Fetch being released by Big Finish later this month (March 2017). Gerson was the creator of The Omega Factor series (and tie-in novel), and Big Finish will release the second series of audio adventures in The Omega Factor range (starring Louise Jameson and John Dorney) in April.

Big Finish are also releasing an audio-book version of Gerson’s The Evil Thereof, read by Barnaby Edwards.

Producer David Richardson explains : “When we started work on The Omega Factor, Natasha Gerson very kindly sent me a couple of her father’s novels as an example of the kind of stories he liked to tell. And I thought, ‘Why has no one ever done audiobooks of these? And so we have, with two brilliant readers – Carolyn and Barney, who do a magnificent job of leading us through these dark, unsettling mysteries…”

Synopsis

It’s the 1980s and Alistair Matheson is forging a quietly ambitious path in Government. All is going to plan until a brief encounter with a man who looks exactly like him throws Alistair’s ordered world into chaos. As this doppelgänger crosses his path time and again a series of events are set in motion with increasingly disturbing consequences. Is this double a spy? A conman? Or could he be something infinitely more sinister?

Written By: Jack Gerson
Directed By: Helen Goldwyn

Cast

Read by Carolyn Seymour

The Fetch is available for pre-order on the Big Finish site, and I’ll be reviewing the release for Starburst magazine.

Both The Fetch and The Evil Thereof can be bought on download for £9.99 each, or collected together in a bundle for £16. If you’re using the free Big Finish Download/Playback App for Android or Apple devices you will be able to listen wherever you are. (Please note these will be large files, and users should be wary of bandwidth usage).

UPDATE, 1 APRIL 2017: My review of Jack Gerson’s The Fetch has now been published in the online edition of Starburst magazine. Of Seymour’s performance, the review suggests that:

Seymour’s reading of Gerson’s prose is simply superb. A performance of complete conviction (that never flags at any point throughout the eight and a half hour running time), Seymour voices the book’s range of characters with impressive confidence. She is just at home with the clipped tones of the officious bureaucrats and politicians as she is with the voices of the oddball, the outsider and the outright disturbing characters that populate the fringes of Matheson’s fast-unravelling world. Seymour invests Matheson with a soft Scottish burr that quietly slides in and out of his speech (just as it would for an aspiring expatriate, eager to advance his position within the Westminster ‘bubble’). Under Helen Goldwyn’s pacey direction, Seymour voices the drama’s chilling and distasteful moments with such restrained finesse that she could clearly bring just the gravitas required to narrate ghost and horror stories.

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UPDATE, 24 APRIL 2017: My review of The Fetch also appears in the print edition of Starburst (#436), now in the shops:

Review of The Fetch in the print edition of Starburst #436