An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Evening Standard rating
Reader rating
Dir: Richard Laxton.
Cast: John Hurt, Cynthia Nixon, Jonathan Tucker, Swoosie Kurtz
Just dandy: John Hurt as gay writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp in ITV film An Englishman In New York
In An Englishman In New York, John Hurt reprises his role as the late gay writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp, 35 years after he played him in classic ITV drama The Naked Civil Servant. Last night the new ITV film had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert De Niro in 2002.
Tribeca provides a suitable venue, not only because its Lower East Side location formed the backdrop for Crisp’s exploits in the film. Though the delicate Crisp and De Niro’s unhinged Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver would appear to have nothing in common, a more urbane variation of Bickle’s famous line, “You talkin’ to me?” seems an appropriate epitaph for Crisp.
As An Englishman In New York demonstrates, Crisp depended upon an unceasing supply of aphorisms to humour and provoke his audience.
Directed by Richard Laxton and written by Brian Fillis, the film covers Crisp’s life from his emigration to New York in 1980 at the age of 72 until his death two decades later. A dandy with painted nails and pencilled eyebrows could do a lot worse than settle in lower Manhattan.
While the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe” are starting to rampage through the city, Crisp revels in being the downtown doyen of the dispossessed. He acquires an agent (Swoosie Kurtz) who books him regular shows and he writes for an alternative weekly magazine, befriending its editor (Denis O’Hare).
Yet Crisp remained throughout his life an enemy of both conformity and solidarity. While much of The Naked Civil Servant consisted of Crisp being beaten up for flaunting his homosexuality when it was still a crime, here he falls foul of the burgeoning gay rights movement.
Crisp’s remark that “Aids is a fad” results in his show being cancelled and his columns axed. But he rebounds in the Nineties, forming a double act with performance artist Penny Arcade (a lively turn from Sex And The City’s Cynthia Nixon).
Hurt’s onscreen gallery of historical figures includes Profumo affair victim Stephen Ward in Scandal, and Caligula in I Claudius. But it’s Crisp who provides his finest real-life portrayal.
He manages to convey his hauteur without chilliness, infusing his idiosyncrasy with humanity. Crisp was clearly not like any person on the planet yet Hurt shows his appeal.
Much of the function of the supporting cast lies in teeing up Hurt’s bon mots. The quips come thick and fast (“buying is more American than thinking; the chief thrill of ballet is that one of the dancers might fall and break their neck”). Crisp contributes to Aids causes “because it has long been an ambition of mine to meet Liz Taylor”.
Crisp was fond of remarking that television is not a thing to watch, it is a thing to be on.
There’s no confirmed transmission date for the film and it is to be hoped that ITV showcases this edgy, sparkling character study in the way it deserves.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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