Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Attendees Confirmed for this Sunday’s BAFTA Television Awards
Damian Lewis: A Spy Among Friends
by Staff | BAFTA | May 12, 2023
As previously reported A Spy Among Friends has been nominated for a BAFTA TV Award as one of the very best TV mini-series of 2022. Other contenders in the same category are Mood, The Thief and This is Going to Hurt, which has received 6 nominations. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards will be hosted by comedians Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan and will take place on Sunday, May 14, 2023, and will be broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer at 7:00 p.m.
Broadcaster and creator of Chicken Shop Date Amelia Dimoldenberg completes Sunday’s hosting line-up in a new backstage position, interviewing stars as they come off stage, as part of the BBC One broadcast. Audiences will be able to tune into the action from 3pm via @BAFTA with Clara Amfo and Michelle Visage leading the red carpet coverage.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis Joins the Hay Festival 2022 Line-Up
Damian Will Read Poetry at Hay Festival 2022
by Damianista | damian-lewis.com | April 5, 2022
UPDATE May 28, 2022 – Damian is no longer part of the line-up due to conflict in scheduling.
The Hay Festival is coming back as an in-person event for the first time in three years! This is the 35th spring edition of the festival in Hay-on-Wye. They have announced their 2022 spring line-up with more than 500 in-person events and there will be a feast of talks, music, comedy, lectures, poetry and more from Thursday, May 26 to Sunday, June 5.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on A Poet for Every Day of the Year Live Broadcast
National Theatre Talks
by National Theatre | YouTube | March 3, 2022
Join us to journey through a calendar year in poetry, read by actors on stage at the National Theatre. Allie Esiri and Damian Lewis were joined by friends including Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley, Danny Sapani and Lesley Sharp. Chris Riddell live drew the evening. A Poet for Every Day of the Year is dedicated to Helen McCrory, who took part in some of these poetry evenings in previous years.
Signed copies of A Poet for Every Day of the Year are available from the National Theatre Bookshop here. Every purchase supports the work of the National Theatre. This event was performed on the Lyttelton stage, National Theatre, London on Tuesday 25 January 2022.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on A Poet for Every Day of the Year Review
Ode to Helen McCrory Cuts to the Heart of the Matter
by Dominic Maxwell | The Times | January 26, 2022
How would Damian Lewis, making his first stage appearance since the death of his wife Helen McCrory last April, begin an occasion dedicated to her memory? With a no-nonsense nod to the mixture of happiness and sadness of being at an occasional poetry reading event that she had taken part in previously herself? With a poem in her honour, performed to a well-scrubbed crowd (including McCrory’s friend Helena Bonham Carter) who had turned out to see him and Sir Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley, Danny Sapani and Lesley Sharp reading from the latest anthology of 366 poems edited by the evening’s organiser and host, Allie Esiri.
In the end, no. Lewis found a way to address the elephant in the room that was both unexpected and oddly fitting to such a charming, varied and resonant evening. He told a story about John Dennis, the 18th-century critic and dramatist who, it turned out, had inadvertently invented the expression “steal my thunder”. “One person whose thunder absolutely would not be stolen was Helen McCrory,” Lewis added, in the building where his late wife had successes in Medea and The Deep Blue Sea. “You could try, but it wouldn’t work.”
That done, he started off the evening of 30 poems with Robert Burns’s Address to a Haggis, his Scottish vowels enabled, he said, by a “little tutorial” from his father-in-law the previous night “after a couple of gins”. Not everything that followed had such a memorable accent to propel it, but almost everything here was pithy and impassioned.
Russell Beale gave his all, yet kept his usual sense of ease, to WH Auden’s O Tell Me The Truth About Love. Sharp was as good imitating Dorothy Parker’s cynical drawl for One Perfect Rose as she was joined by Ripley for a twin delivery of Tennyson’s The Charge of The Light Brigade. Although there were a few more greatest hits of poetry like that, more recent and less-known pieces made as much of an impression. Sapani’s reading of Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris made one want to hear more from its author, Raymond Antrobus.
There was a moving finale when footage of McCrory performing at the event, in 2017, was shown as the final poem. It was a tremendous reminder that poetry cuts to the heart of things as much as it dances round their edge.
Read the rest of the original article at The Times
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis Reads From ‘A Poet for Every Day of the Year’ In Honor of Helen McCrory
A Poetry Dedication to Commemorate Helen McCrory
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | January 25, 2022
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 guests gathered for a live poetry reading dedicated to the late, great Helen McCrory. Allie Esiri, author of her latest installment A Poet for Every Day of the Year, curated the night’s event at the Lyttelton venue of National Theatre in London. From 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. a variety of readers took to the stage to read verse from the new anthology, including Damian Lewis, Lesley Sharp, Fay Ripley, Simon Russell Beale and Danny Sapani with 900+ audience members in attendance, together with Damian and Helen’s children Manon and Gulliver and family friend Helena Bonham Carter.
Damian introduced the evening as he shared an anecdote about the origins of the expression ‘stealing somebody’s thunder,’ which apparently comes from the failed playwright John Dennis in 1709. Damian remarked that nobody could steal Helen’s thunder on stage:
“This evening is dedicated to her and it’s perfect, because Helen loved the National Theatre. One person whose thunder would absolutely not be stolen was Helen McCrory.”
Helen thought poetry mattered and supported Allie Esiri’s passionate determination to make it a part of our daily lives. Curator and Author Allie Esiri said,
“We dedicated the evening to Helen and Damian said a few words, but we just wanted to get on and do the show. It’s what she would have told us to do – OK, enough already, get on with the show!”
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on A Poet for Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre
A Poetry Reading Dedicated to Helen
by Staff | National Theatre | January 16, 2022
Damian, Allie and Helen at A Poem for Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre in November 2018. Allie organized the event and Helen was one of the readers.
Following the success of previous poetry reading evenings at the National Theatre, Allie Esiri is back on January 25, 2022 for a fifth year with a show based on her latest anthology; A Poet for Every Day of the Year. We will journey through a calendar year, highlighting key moments and dates with poetry from some of the world’s greatest verse writers, read by some of our leading actors. This event is dedicated to Helen McCrory, who took part in some of these poetry evenings in previous years. Allie Esiri and Damian Lewis will be joined onstage by friends including Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley and Lesley Sharp.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis Returns to Theatre AGAIN: Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes Project UK – Oct 16, 2020
Theater of War Productions Presents Virtual Event: Ajax and Philoctetes
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | October 16, 2020
UPDATE: To view photos of the event, view our Gallery here.
This is a dramatic reading of scenes of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes to catalyze guided discussions about the visible and invisible wounds of war. Featuring performances by Damian Lewis, Lesley Sharp, Nyasha Hatendi, and Jason Isaacs. Translated and directed, and facilitated by Bryan Doerries. You must register for free tickets here or here.
Date And Time:
Friday, November 6, 2020
1:00 PM – 3:30 PM CST
2:00 PM – 4:30 PM EST
7:00 PM – 9:30 PM BST
This special event is a collaboration with Bravehound, a Scottish charity that supports veterans and their families in the United Kingdom. We are proud to open this event up to the public, fostering healing dialogue with the Bravehound community. Bravehound supports former servicemen, women and their families by providing training and dogs to veterans. Visit Bravehound’s website here.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis Returns to Theatre: The Oedipus Project UK – Aug 26, 2020
Theater of War Productions Presents Virtual Event: Oedipus The King
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | August 26, 2020
UPDATE: View images of the virtual play event in our Gallery here
The Oedipus Project presents dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a catalyst for powerful, guided conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon individuals, families, and communities. Oedipus the King is a timeless story about arrogant leadership, ignored prophecy, and a pestilence that ravages the city of Thebes. At the time the play was first performed in 429 BC, the audience would have been reeling in the wake of a plague. Seen through this lens, Oedipus the King seems as relevant now as it was in its own time.
This special live event will feature performances by Kathryn Hunter, Damian Lewis, Lesley Sharp, Clarke Peters, Jason Isaacs, Nyasha Hatendi, Brian F. O’Byrne, and Nick Holder. Translated, directed and facilitated by Bryan Doerries.
The Zoom link to the free event will be distributed and available to registered attendees starting two days prior to the event. You must register for free tickets here.
