High Praise - With spoilers

The Telegraph has an article on Alex with a great many compliments:


"Lady In The Van director Nicholas Hytner, with whom Jennings has a longtime collaborative relationship, ranks Jennings among the pre-eminent actors of his generation and has hailed him as “a John Gielgud for the 21st century”.

With his greying curls, care-worn features and subversive twinkle, Jennings has a face that lends itself perfectly to period roles. He has also inhabited other real-life figures, including former US president George Bush Nazi architect Albert Speer, Dad’s Army actor John Le Mesurier and composer Benjamin Britten. He has said the key to playing such roles is to act, not impersonate becaue the characters “mustn’t become Spitting Image puppets”."

and

"Whether it’s on-stage or in supporting screen roles, Alex Jennings has spent more than three decades being consistently brilliant."

I can't quote more, the articles has spoilers of Unforgotten. If you still want to watch that and not know what happens, don't read this now!!

Full article (with Unforgotten spoilers) at The Telegraph.

Look At You Now

There is an exhibition on in the foyer of the National Theatre with pictures of actors and other theatre makers as children and adults in similar poses. Alex is there, of course. (Couldn't get a picture without those reflections, unfortunately).

The exhibition is free, more information at National Theatre website.

Frielfest Confession

A confession from Alex on his performance at Frielfest to Mark Lawson at the Guardian:

"And Friel, who spent two years as a young man studying for the priesthood before an eventual retreat from Catholicism, might have enjoyed the fact that Jennings became surely the first person to have spoken the F-word four times in that parish hall. The actor told me afterwards that he had also committed a mild acting sin; the text specifies that Teddy drinks pale ale while reminiscing and, for the first time, the actor supped real alcohol while acting, an experiment he does not plan to repeat, but which did not diminish his characteristic precision and intelligence."

Full piece on the performance at The Guardian.

Frielfest

Arts Over Borders: Tamsin Greig, Toby Jones, Alex Jennings and more perform Friel in rural Ireland https://t.co/vDV0sFhOaI pic.twitter.com/Nj9FEjTeRI

— WhatsOnStage (@WhatsOnStage) August 15, 2018

Review at WhatsOnStage.

Culture Fix

Alex talks about his cultural life in The Times. You can only read if you register but it's an interesting read. His favourite books, films, productions, music. I'm particularly pleased he picked "Nicholas Nickleby" as his favourite play, I've always loved that and loved Roger Rees in that. For the Cabin Pressure fans there is "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" apparently a big influence on Alex's acting...

I also liked this one:

"The play that I walked out of at the interval
One I was in. It was Present Laughter at the National and it was before the interval. The safety curtain got stuck, so we never really got going. Everyone went home and the theatre was shut for something like three days."

He can't have been very lucky with this production, when I met him after a performance he had hurt his foot on stage and had to be hurried off..

Spotlight

Alex, Imelda Staunton and Spotlight nominees and winners talk about preparing a monologue.



Article at Spotlight.

Ryedale

Alex appeared at the Pickering Parish Church for a poetry reading last Saturday night.

A joy to be back @ryedalefestival for a late-night, candle-lit Bach recital complete with poetry readings by the wonderful #AlexJennings The church of St Peter & St Paul in #Pickering makes a perfect setting with its breathtaking Medieval wall paintings. #Yorkshire pic.twitter.com/XWbS2KTsYz

— Charles Owen (@owenpiano) July 30, 2018