Showing posts with label Frost/Nixon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frost/Nixon. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 January 2013

Review of Ripper Street ‘The Weight of One Man’s Heart’ By Neela Debnath (INDEPENDENT)


Charlene McKenna as Rose (BBC)

On this week’s installment of CSI: Whitechapel or “Ripper Street” as it is more commonly referred to, viewers were finally given an insight into Sergeant Drake’s dark past. There was of course the regular dose of sex, violence and anachronisms that come as standard with each episode.

Thus far Drake has been somewhat of a mystery to the audience and there have only been small hints of the man he used to be. During the lockdown at the orphanage in episode 2, Drake spoke about his nightmares and revealed a tattoo of an Egyptian goddess.

For those who may have wondered what lay beneath that cool, uptight and very proper Victorian exterior need wonder no longer. Drake was a former soldier who experienced all the horrors of war and more after slaying his captors when he was taken prisoner.

There is a reason he is Reid’s muscle and essentially tethered to a leash but it is a self-imposed restriction. Jackson may mock him for being too serious but perhaps he would be less cocky if he knew what Drake was capable and what he has done in the past.

It was a great story in terms of character development and the parallels it created between the treatment of veterans returning from the front line in the Victorian era and in 2013. It served as an interesting angle and way in for viewers. Drake’s former brother-in-arms Colonel Madoc Faulkner (Iain Glen) gave a fierce critique of the ‘reward’ former soldiers are given when they return home after serving. He made a compelling argument and raised an issue that applies both then and now.

READ MORE: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/review-of-ripper-street-the-weight-of-one-mans-heart/

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Matthew Macfadyen plays it straight on 'Ripper Street' on BBC America (Philly.com)


Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
POSTED: Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 3:01 AM
* RIPPER STREET. 9 p.m. Saturdays, BBC America.


PASADENA, Calif. - You might not guess it to see him as Mr. Darcy to Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride & Prejudice" or the somber Victorian London police Inspector Edmund Reid in BBC America's new "Ripper Street," but Matthew Macfadyen sometimes has trouble keeping a straight face.
In fact, Jerome Flynn ("Game of Thrones"), who plays Reid's sergeant in "Ripper Street," says Macfadyen and co-star Adam Rothenberg ("Alcatraz") are "the two biggest gigglers I've worked with."

"Adam's terrible. He's terrible!" said Macfadyen in an interview earlier this month during the Television Critics Association's winter meetings. "We . . . got to a stage where we couldn't look at each other."

Given how many of their scenes involve dead bodies - Rothenberg plays a former U.S. Army surgeon with a murky past and a few forensics tricks up his sleeve - some gallows humor is understandable.

But then there was "Frost/Nixon," the 2008 film in which Macfadyen played David Frost producer John Birt.

"There's a lot of giggling with Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt and I, because for much of it we were kind of in the back of shots . . . so there was a lot of naughtiness. And the more serious Frank [Langella, who played Richard Nixon] and Michael [Sheen, who played Frost] were, the more hysterical" the three became, Macfadyen recalled.

READ MORE: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/television/187997591.html

Friday, 28 December 2012

It’s a Ripper! You can almost smell the fear on the set of frighteningly fantastic new crime drama Ripper Street (TV MAGAZINE)

By ANNE-MARIE HAMILTON Published: 27th December 2012



DENSE fog swirls above the cobbles as chickens in wooden cages let out high-pitched squawks and a pair of bloomers swings from a washing line high above the street.

Welcome to the mean streets of Whitechapel in 1889 where corpses, violence and general squalor abound.
It’s a lawless place ruled by fear and the setting for a new crime drama focusing on the terrifying aftermath of the Jack the Ripper murders.

TV Magazine is on location at a former army barracks in Dublin that’s doubling for London’s East End.
And as we peer past a crowd of extras, a familiar figure emerges in the gloom – former Spooks star Matthew Macfadyen, all broad-shouldered and reassuring in a well-cut check suit.


“Everyone has got this terrible hangover from not finding the Ripper – and they’ve got real hangovers as well,” says Matthew, 38, who stars as Detective Edmund Reid. “There has been a little bit of Guinness...”
Within minutes on set, it’s clear that pints of the black stuff have created a tight bond between the show’s three male stars, Matthew, Jerome Flynn and Adam Rothenberg.


“There is a lot of giggling,” admits Jerome, 49. “I have to admit, one of the reasons I wanted to be in the series was because Matt was doing it. I’m a big fan of his and thought: ‘Well, he’s not going to involve himself in anything that’s going to die.’ I think made the right decision.”

“It’s nice being away from London,” muses Matt (here’s hoping his actress wife Keeley Hawes, 36, isn’t offended). “Dublin feels very contained. And the set feels like a playground.”


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/tvmagazine/tvmagazinefeatures/4714805/Its-a-Ripper-Matthew-Macfadyen-Jerome-Flynn-and-Adam-Rothenberg-star-in-Jack-the-Ripper-drama-Ripper-Street.html#ixzz2GOcA0RZU

Friday, 21 December 2012

Matthew Macfadyen - The Way We Live Now (BURNT BY THE SUN)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlX58Akh3-4

One of my favorite videos, of one of my favorite actors in one of his very best performances.  The cad - Sir Felix!!!

Love this, sorry that the video is so poor though.

xacu1