Features: Luc Hayward, Lydia Hayward, Pete Lawford, Dave Mitchell, Jacqui Roe | Written and Directed by Lucy Harvey, Danielle Kummer
I remember reading about this story a while ago and it seemed like a very obvious story to cover as a documentary. But Alien On Stage is so much more than you can imagine and it’s an absolute joy.
A group of Dorset bus drivers and bus company workers perform a very amateur dramatic pantomime. For those outside of the U.K. a pantomime is a theatrical production that involves music, slapstick comedy and audience interaction, usually based around a fairy tail and performed around Christmas. They’re usually pretty awful for anyone watching that is over twelve years old. The writer of this years pantomime for the bus workers didn’t want to write a pantomime, instead he chose a stage version of Alien!
It’s a crazy idea but clearly a brilliant one.
I remember reading about this story a while ago and it seemed like a very obvious story to cover as a documentary. But Alien On Stage is so much more than you can imagine and it’s an absolute joy.
A group of Dorset bus drivers and bus company workers perform a very amateur dramatic pantomime. For those outside of the U.K. a pantomime is a theatrical production that involves music, slapstick comedy and audience interaction, usually based around a fairy tail and performed around Christmas. They’re usually pretty awful for anyone watching that is over twelve years old. The writer of this years pantomime for the bus workers didn’t want to write a pantomime, instead he chose a stage version of Alien!
It’s a crazy idea but clearly a brilliant one.
- 8/18/2021
- by Alain Elliott
- Nerdly
'Sorrell and Son' with H.B. Warner and Alice Joyce. 'Sorrell and Son' 1927 movie: Long thought lost, surprisingly effective father-love melodrama stars a superlative H.B. Warner Partially shot on location in England and produced independently by director Herbert Brenon at Joseph M. Schenck's United Artists, the 1927 Sorrell and Son is a skillful melodrama about paternal devotion in the face of both personal and social adversity. This long-thought-lost version of Warwick Deeping's 1925 bestseller benefits greatly from the veteran Brenon's assured direction, deservedly shortlisted in the first year of the Academy Awards.* Crucial to the film's effectiveness, however, is the portrayal of its central character, a war-scarred Englishman who sacrifices it all for the happiness of his son. Luckily, the London-born H.B. Warner, best remembered for playing Jesus Christ in another 1927 release, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, is the embodiment of honesty, selflessness, and devotion. Less is...
- 10/9/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
British Silent Film Festival | The Colour Of Money | How To Change The World | Masterpieces Of Polish Cinema
In this year’s reliably illuminating celebration of British film before 1930, you can catch the work of the sparky screenwriter Lydia Hayward in Not For Sale (Fri), a 1924 comedy about an aristocrat on his uppers who is forced to take digs at a Bloomsbury boarding house. The Guns Of Loos (Thu), a melodrama focusing on a romantic tug-of-war for a Red Cross nurse, shows too, while Geoff Brown gives a talk (Thu) on the subject of whether Hitchcock’s Blackmail really was the first British talkie. Brown will use excerpts to show that the truth isn’t as black-and-white as the cinematography.
Continue reading...
In this year’s reliably illuminating celebration of British film before 1930, you can catch the work of the sparky screenwriter Lydia Hayward in Not For Sale (Fri), a 1924 comedy about an aristocrat on his uppers who is forced to take digs at a Bloomsbury boarding house. The Guns Of Loos (Thu), a melodrama focusing on a romantic tug-of-war for a Red Cross nurse, shows too, while Geoff Brown gives a talk (Thu) on the subject of whether Hitchcock’s Blackmail really was the first British talkie. Brown will use excerpts to show that the truth isn’t as black-and-white as the cinematography.
Continue reading...
- 9/4/2015
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
Funny faces to lost gems, war horses to strange censorship, silent film is a wondrous way to immerse oneself in history
A trip to the British silent film festival is a unique opportunity to wallow in some unfamiliar waters. Four days immersed in silent cinema is time spent in the company of many films that have been forgotten or misremembered, films that have only been seen before by archivists and researchers, and that may never get a public airing again. Some of these films are great, but even those that aren't are fascinating, as cinema history, and as a glimpse of what it was like to live in Britain 100 years ago.
1. "They didn't need dialogue, they had faces"
We're all familiar with Gloria Swanson's famous line in Sunset Boulevard, but she was talking about the blandly beautiful people of Hollywood. The faces of British silent cinema may not be attached to famous names,...
A trip to the British silent film festival is a unique opportunity to wallow in some unfamiliar waters. Four days immersed in silent cinema is time spent in the company of many films that have been forgotten or misremembered, films that have only been seen before by archivists and researchers, and that may never get a public airing again. Some of these films are great, but even those that aren't are fascinating, as cinema history, and as a glimpse of what it was like to live in Britain 100 years ago.
1. "They didn't need dialogue, they had faces"
We're all familiar with Gloria Swanson's famous line in Sunset Boulevard, but she was talking about the blandly beautiful people of Hollywood. The faces of British silent cinema may not be attached to famous names,...
- 4/24/2012
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.