Richard Armitage on radio tonight - LISTEN HERE!!

JUST GOT A TWEET THAT HE'LL BE ON TOMORROW - HE'S STILL OVER LOS ANGELES OR SOMETHING - I'LL GET THE TIME OUT TOMORROW....RATS AND MICE!!!!!

TWEET REGARDING RICHARD ARMITAGE:  (THANK YOU TO RICHARD ARMITAGE ARMY FACEBOOK)

BBC Leicester
‏@BBCLeicester
Richard Armitage - star of Spooks, Robin Hood and The Hobbit - joins @davearadio live from LA after 5pm on 104.9FM to talk #RichardIII

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Hobbit actor lines up role as Richard III (HERALD SCOTLAND)

A Scots-based researcher who instigated a dig for the remains of Richard III says she has persuaded The Hobbit star Richard Armitage to play the king in a proposed new film.

ROYAL ROLE: Researcher Philippa Langley says she has persuaded English actor Richard Armitage to star in a film she has written about Richard III. Main picture: Gordon Terris

Philippa Langley finished a screenplay about the medieval monarch's life last year, months after she led archaeologists to a spot where a skeleton believed to be his was found.

Ms Langley, 50, who is secretary of the Scottish branch of the Richard III Society, came up with the idea of the search during a meeting of the group in February 2009.

Results of tests are to be revealed over the next day or so, conclusively proving whether the remains are indeed those of the last Plantagenet monarch.

Ms Langley contacted Armitage, 41, who plays dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's blockbuster, and says he agreed to take on the role. Armitage has also starred in a number of television series including Spooks, Robin Hood and the Vicar of Dibley.

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 by the forces of Henry Tudor, effectively ending the 30-year-long War of the Roses.

He is often regarded as an ugly, hunchbacked tyrant, but Langley believes history has judged him unfairly and the popular view of him stems from the Tudors, who were keen to damage his reputation in order to justify his killing.

Her screenplay presents a sympathetic portrait of him, underlining his accomplishments such as the introduction of the presumption of innocence of an accused facing trial.

It also disputes the opinion he was responsible for the murders of his nephews, 12-year-old Edward V and nine-year-old Richard, Duke of York, the so-called Princes in the Tower.

"I had to write the screenplay. Richard III's story has to be out there. I want that story to be told. I had Richard Armitage in mind to play him and he has agreed," said Ms Langley.

"Not only he is a dead ringer for Richard III, but he was born a few miles away from Bosworth field and was named after him."

READ MORE: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/hobbit-actor-lines-up-role-as-richard-iii.20080483

Detailed Drafts Of Laurence Olivier's Unmade 'Macbeth' Movie Script Found NEWS BY INDIA ROSS

Remember that time when Indiana Jones found the Ark of the Covenant? This is a bit like that.

In the rural university town of Exeter, England, an academic has uncovered thirteen versions of a lost screenplay for Laurence Olivier’s "Macbeth." Exploring the library’s Laurence Olivier Archive (probably a good bet when hoping to come across such documents), the lecturer discovered a final shooting script adorned with intricate set designs and technical instructions, despite the theatrical icon’s life-long protestations that a mere “sketch” was all that remained.

While eighteen screen versions of Macbeth have been produced to date, Olivier’s was never made. Financially beleaguered, the project, which was to star Olivier and his then-wife Vivien Leigh, and would have seen them reprise what were widely believed to be their finest roles of the English stage, was derailed and abandoned. Things get a bit Da Vinci Code when one looks into the history of the Scottish Play. Shrouded in theatrical lore – a mystique which Olivier wielded with particularly public vigor after the ignominious loss of his own adaptation – "Macbeth" has haunted its prospective re-tellers with the kind of morbid revenge last seen from Banquo’s ghost. Its run on stage and screen has been beset with cast fatalities, financial ruin, and a notable severing of Macduff’s thumbs in a production of 1794. Abraham Lincoln himself purportedly read passages from Duncan’s assassination in the week prior to his death.

READ MORE: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/detailed-drafts-of-laurence-oliviers-unmade-macbeth-movie-script-found-20130131

Peter O'Toole and Orson Welles discuss Hamlet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97R83-KMhhc

Mekanik destruktiw chinera

David Tennant leads new RSC season as Richard II (GUARDIAN)

Great Dane … David Tennant in the RSC's production of Hamlet. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Five years after his critically acclaimed Hamlet, David Tennant is to return to the ranks of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the title role of Richard II.

On Wednesday the RSC's new artistic director Gregory Doran announced details of his first season since taking over from Michael Boyd, with the return of Tennant and adaptations of Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell novels among the highlights.

Doran himself will direct Richard II, following on from their Hamlet in 2008–09 – a production that the Guardian's Michael Billington described as "one of the most richly textured, best-acted versions of the play we have seen in years". While it was a much praised production it was not without its difficulties; chief among them Tennant's prolapsed disc that meant he was unable to perform in the London production for about a month.

READ MORE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/jan/23/david-tennant-rsc-season-richard

Jeremy Irons prefers Shakespeare to 'Abbey' Gary Levin, USA TODAY

The actor is among the stars who will delve into the Bard's most compelling characters for PBS.

PBS is telling tales behind some of Shakespeare's greatest plays.

Shakespeare Uncovered, produced by New York's WNET, is a three-week, six-episode project featuring stars who've played celebrated characters exploring what's behind them. It kicks off Jan. 25 with Ethan Hawke exploring Macbeth and Joely Richardson delving into the playwright's comedies. Jeremy Irons tackles Henry IVand V on Feb. 1, and other episodes feature Hamlet, The Tempest and Richard II. Each episode mixes performances, history, analysis, and the actors speaking passionately about their roles as they trek to sites imagined or visited by the author.

"One of the reasons why Shakespeare shines as the greatest dramatist of all time is he was writing about the human condition," Irons says. "Jealousy, envy or unrequited love, or the relationship between family members. It's something that hasn't changed. So when we see those plays now they still speak to us, they have a resonance, (while) hundreds of plays written since then don't."


READ MORE: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2013/01/15/jeremy-irons-pbs-shakespeare/1836523/

Claire Foy Cast Opposite James McAvoy in Traf Transformed's MACBETH on West End (Broadway World)

As reported by the Daily Mail, Claire Foy has been cast as 'Lady Macbeth' opposite James McAvoy in new West End theatre company Traf Transformed's production of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The show will run Feb 9 through April 27, 2013, directed by Jamie Lloyd.


The show will play the Trafalgar Studio in Whitehall Theatre, as one of four plays to be produced in the new space featuring designer Soutra Gilmour. Lloyd is considering hiring an all-Scottish cast for the show, which will be set in a "distopian separatist Scotland".

Read more: http://westend.broadwayworld.com/article/Claire-Foy-Cast-Opposite-James-McAvoy-in-Traf-Transformeds-MACBETH-on-West-End-20130103#ixzz2H2kg0JIr