Categories Appearances Damian Lewis Events Helen Personal and Family Life Poetry Readings Video

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.

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Categories Appearances Damian Lewis Events Helen Personal and Family Life Poetry Readings

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

Categories Appearances Damian Lewis Events Gallery Helen Personal and Family Life Poetry Readings

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!”

Continue reading Damian Lewis Reads From ‘A Poet for Every Day of the Year’ In Honor of Helen McCrory

Categories Appearances Damian Lewis Events Helen Personal and Family Life Poetry Readings

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.

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Categories Appearances Audio Books Events Helen Poetry Readings

Damian and Helen to Lead Shakespeare Reading – Sept 16, 2019

Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | September 16, 2019

We are delighted to announce that Damian and Helen will be joining Allie Esiri’s new compilation Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year‘s recorded audio book.

At this time, we are unsure if the couple will make an appearance to perform any live readings at upcoming events, but we will keep you informed as information is made available.

Two possible events remain this year: October 12 at Cheltenham Literature Festival and November 11 at National Theatre, London. For more information and tickets about Cheltenham, click here and for National Theatre, click here.

About the event: For the fourth year running, and following the success of A Poem for Every Night of the Year, A Poem for Every Day of the Year and Women Poets Through the Ages, Allie Esiri is back with a show based on her latest anthology; Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year.

It is a journey through a calendar year, highlighting key moments and dates with a sonnet, speech or scene taken from across all of Shakespeare’s works.

According to Pan Macmillan Publishers website, Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year will be published on September 19, 2019, along with an audio book. Fans can purchase the audio book to hear the couple recite one of Shakespeare’s works!

Here is Damian reading an extract from Macbeth:

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Categories Helen Personal and Family Life Summertime Theatre

Damian and Helen Enjoy An Evening at the Theatre – May 22, 2019

The Lehman Trilogy

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | May 22, 2019

Thespians Damian and Helen, pictured with Ben Power here, attended opening night of award-winning The Lehman Trilogy play at London’s Piccadilly Theatre on Wednesday, May 22, 2019.

They joined Press Night for a VIP preview of the new production. Others in attendance were Adrian Lester, Stephen Mangan, Helen George, Natalie Dormer, Iain Glen and Ben Power.

The Lehman Brothers have opened their doors in the West End for a limited, 16-week run. It is story of a family and a company that changed the world, told in three parts on a single evening.

On a cold September morning in 1844 a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside. Dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers and an American epic begins.

163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, and triggers the largest financial crisis in history.

Bobby Axelrod knows a thing or two about Wallstreet and the financial crisis!

The play was adapted by Ben Power, with Sam Mendes directing Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles who play the Lehman Brothers, their sons and grandsons.

Continue reading Damian and Helen Enjoy An Evening at the Theatre – May 22, 2019