Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Another Year of Wonder - a voice project on Clemmie’s behalf

Clemency Burton-Hill’s audiobook of Another Year of Wonder (Headline Home)
will be narrated by Eddie Redmayne, with an introduction from Elizabeth Day.
The book suggests an “extraordinary” piece of music for every day of the year.


“I feel honoured to have narrated Another Year of Wonder on Clemmie’s behalf,”
said Redmayne. “She writes about each piece of music with such energy and
passion that you can’t help but immediately want to stop what you’re doing
and seek it out. It’s a fascinating book which I hope many will enjoy.”

@clemencybh: Look! Somehow this exists! In the actual world!
📕🎶✨🙏♥️ (x)

“I am so delighted that Eddie has narrated Another Year of Wonder on my behalf,”
said Burton-Hill. “He has been a dear friend for many years and has been a huge
support to me over the past two years, since I suffered a catastrophic brain injury.
I can’t think of anyone better to bring my words to life in the audiobook, and I am
also hugely grateful to the wonderful Elizabeth Day for narrating her beautiful
foreword and my introduction to the book.”


The audiobook will be released on Audible on 30th December 2021.
We can enjoy listening to the book with Eddie's narration
for more than 9 hours. (x)


I found some more old photos of Eddie and Clemmie here



Merry Christmas to everyone!

Update 30th December: The audiobook is available now to purchase
on Audible (one-month free trial if you're not a member yet)

You can listen to a sample on Soundcloud here

Friday, December 17, 2021

Cast photos of Cabaret from the rehearsals

    Choreographer Julia Cheng posted on Instagram: "I am so relieved and proud to have
choreographed my first west end musical. I am finally breathing and sitting processing.
It’s been a tornado beautiful storm. I lost the strongest closest woman in my life and
received so much love from all the Cabaret family..."

End of first workshops

End of rehearsals
Cast photos by Marc Brenner

Julie Owen Moylan, author of 'That Green-Eyed Girl' posted on Twitter:




"Guys...this is only the actual cast of @kitkatclubLDN reading #ThatGreenEyedGirl Green heart
"Yes that is Eddie Redmayne, Jessie Buckley, and my absolute queen Unbelievable Green heartGreen heartGreen heartGreen heartGreen heartGreen heartGreen heartGreen heart See you Saturday you stars"


"Never Getting over this..." (x)

Unfortunately, Covid has led to the Sat shows being canceled, so
she has to wait longer to see these absolute stars on stage. 


The production canceled the December 16-18 shows due to a cast member's
positive Covid test. Let's hope he or she will be alright, and the Kit Kat Club
can welcome guests again soon. 🙏 News about performances for next week
will be announced later. Hopefully, production will restart soon.

Update: The December 20-24 shows were also canceled, 
performances resumed from 27th December. (x)

Monday, December 13, 2021

The first trailer for The Secrets of Dumbledore


The day has finally arrived. The first trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
was released by Warner Bros today, and it's magical.



You are invited back to the magic. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore
is in theaters in April 2022.













Dumbledore asked that I give you something, Jacob. (Pickett: ta-da)






Our favorite hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and the beasts are back.



The  3rd Fantastic Beasts movie seems to abound in exciting and funny scenes.

Swivel, but delicately.

I'm swiveling like you're swiveling.





Correct! 3 points to Hufflepuff.

my screenshots and gifs



The film will be released here in Hungary a week earlier than
previously announced, we can watch it from 14th April.
yet in the case of some countries, it shows the July date. I suggest
you check it later or check it on a cinema website in your country.
For Example, Italian fans can watch the movie from 13th April. (x)
The film is scheduled for availability to stream on
HBO Max 45 days after its theatrical debut. (x)

Opening Night of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club on Sunday - Reviews

Eddie‘s wife Hannah, Claire Foy, Josh O’Connor, and more attended a Gala performance
of Cabaret on Sunday (December 12) at Playhouse Theatre in London. 

A curtain call photo posted by Carl Woodward on Twitter

"He's the most hard-working, conscientious actor I have ever worked with,"
Rebecca Frecknall said of Redmayne. "His work ethic is incredible, and his
love of the role and the production and the team is absolutely wonderful,
so he's been a real anchor for the piece." (Reuters)


After the show, the stars attended an after-party at The Kit Kat Club.



Omari Douglas, Charlie Wood, Ed Bartlam, Jessie Buckley, Eddie, Adam Speers

Ed Bartlam, Eddie, Adam Speers, Charlie Wood

Charlie Wood posted on Instagram: "So, last night was deeply emotional. 7 long years
ago, @edb_belly and I had an idea of bringing Cabaret to London with a Kit Kat Club
all around it. Eddie Redmayne said he’d like to play the Emcee, then Jessie Buckley
said yes to Sally Bowles and Rebecca Frecknall as our director. ATG and ATG
Productions came on board with Adam Speers @pumpkin25 and brought along
the brilliant idea of converting the Playhouse Theatre. Together with the equally
brilliant Adam Speers, we’ve produced it and last night we opened it (and had a bit
of a party). All with the awesome help of @tomscuttdesign Tom Scutt (designer)
who’s made the whole Club as well as designing the show, Julia Cheng @juliachenghoa 
(choreographer), Jennifer Whyte @msjenwhyte (Music Supervisor and Director),
Isabella Byrd @isabelllaa (Lighting Designer) and Nick Lidster (Sound Designer)
and our perfectly marvellous cast and Ensemble who blow you away every night.
Omari Douglas @marsdoug (Cliff), Liza Sadovy @lizasadovy (Schneider),
Elliot Levey @elliotlevey (Schultz), Stewart Clarke @stewclarke (Ernst),
AJ Casey @annajanecasey13 (Kost), Sally Frith @sallyfrith (Frenchie),
Matthew Gent (Hans), Theo Maddix (Lulu), Daniel Perry @daniel_h_perry (Victor),
Andre Refig @andrerefig (Max), Christopher Tendai @christophertendai (Bobby),
Bethany Terry @bethany__terry (Helga), Lillie-Pearl Wildman @lillie.pearl (Texas),
Sophie Maria Wojna @singreadsophiew (Rosie).
After the nightmare that Covid has been for Underbelly and our wider industry,
there were a good few tears shed opening what I think those who have seen it,
think is pretty darn good, again against the backdrop of more Covid news
and losing freedoms (which echo the context of Cabaret)."






Eddie with Jessie Buckley, Omari Douglas, and Sir Trevor Nunn (via @theRED61)


🙌
Quotes from the rave reviews published today

Marianka Swain, BroadwayWorld: 'Conducting the action (sometimes literally) is Redmayne,
who is making only his second West End musical appearance following a juvenile role in Oliver!.
On this evidence, that's a crying shame. His performance is absolutely magnetic - and he has both
the pipes and the moves to match. Redmayne puts a fascinating new spin on the Emcee: less
sexually aggressive, more a giddy, shape-shifting imp with elements of the broken doll or Charlie 
Chaplin clown about him. He twists his body into strange positions, delivers his comic patter
with gentle self-mockery, delights in his scantily clad company, or, dressed in a Pierrot costume
and tiny party hat, suddenly seems impossibly vulnerable. His "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" is
both sonorously beautiful and spine-chilling.'

Dominic Cavendish, Telegraph: 'This is it. This is the one. At the end of the year, Rebecca
Frecknall’s production of Cabaret – starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley – stands
revealed as 2021’s kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph...
Redmayne, returning to theatre after a decade, offers a dazzling vision of the Emcee role,
so long associated with Alan Cumming in the Mendes production, that makes it freshly
glinting and sinister...
Sporting an androgynous skort, tiny party-hat and attitude of leering mischief, he refashions
the greeting song Willkommen, applying a thick, sickly Teutonic accent but ambushing you
with roof-raising bellows, unpredictability the watchword.
Where Cumming was brazenly sexual, there’s something abstract and parodic about
Redmayne’s nonetheless consummately physical characterisation, as if conjured from
a nightmare. He keeps pivoting during that rabble-rousing first number, enacting
a carousel of calibrated poses, like a figure from a musical-box.
Then, his shrouded dancers suddenly revealed, he becomes the gleeful conductor of
an orgiastic frenzy, scuttling impishly beneath artfully arranged legs and buttocks.'

Arifa Akbar, Guardian: 'But from the moment we are “Willkommened” by Redmayne,
it is clear he is in control of his material and electric in his part. As the soiled soul
of Berlin, Redmayne’s Emcee mirrors the movement from light to dark; he is
a comically twisted Rumpelstiltskin at the start, uncoiling to a figure resembling
a terrible evil fairy or angel of death by the end.
There are several moments at which we catch our breath, one coming in “If You Could
See Her” in which he pushes the comic absurdism of singing a soppy love song to
a gorilla and then chills us with the last, antiSemitic line, spat out like snake venom
rather than whispered like Joel Grey’s comic aside in the 1972 film.
It does not matter that Redmayne’s voice is drowned out by the orchestra at times.
He gives an immense, physicalized performance, both muscular and delicate, from
his curled limbs to his tautly expressive fingertips...
'Redmayne creeps around the fringes of the stage when he is not performing, watching
scenes from afar. If this show is sold on his star turn, we get more than our money’s
worth with his blinding performance – in this blinder of a show.'

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: 'Eddie Redmayne's Emcee is a brilliantly twisted
creation, part tribute to Joel Grey's original performance on Broadway and in Bob
Fosse's 1972 film adaptation, part George Grosz grotesque, part baby crocodile.'


Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: '" in here, life is beautiful. The girls are beautiful.
Even the orchestra is beautiful." The line is delivered by Redmayne, rising from beneath
the stage like a strange master of misrule, red party hat askew on his ginger-wigged head,
arms jutting out in crooked curves, every word from his twisted mouth freighted with
double meaning. He's surrounded by a sea of individuality, writhing bodies making small,
singular gestures, pushing themselves into frenetic shapes...
Redmayne's Emcee – a proper performance rather than a star turn, though it is thanks to
his determination that this entire production happened – is not at all ingratiating.
His movement is twisted, his singing strong but staccato and very precise.
He is almost Mephistophelean in his journey from boy in braces, though a masked and
armed Pierrot, to blond conformist still conducting events but now to a different tune;
he sings "I don't care much" with uncommon savagery and you believe he doesn't.

Alexandra Pollard, Independent: 'Enter Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee, an impish,
mercurial presence who serves as both compere of the cabaret and a sort of all-seeing
narrator. In the strange and seductive opening number “Wilkommen”, he promises
an escape from the real world – but his gurning presence becomes more disturbing,
his songs a metaphor for the darkening soul of Germany as it descends in Nazism.
Redmayne is excellent, contorting his sinewy body and singing with
a closed-throated vibrato and hammed-up German accent.'

Demetrios Matheou, Hollywood Reporter: 'Just as Cumming rebooted the persona of
the Emcee created by Joel Grey, so Redmayne offers another, extravagant take of his own.
From the moment he launches into “Willkommen,” dressed in vest and baggy purple pants,
a party hat perched on his head, his body arched, German accent harsh and mocking as
he introduces his band of dancers, Redmayne exerts a mesmerizing hold that never falters.
As we know from Les Miserables, he has a strong singing voice. He’s also quite the clothes
horse, which serves an Emcee who is something of a chameleon abstraction, the perfect
mirror both of the permissive decadence and freedom of self-expression of Weimar Berlin,
and the evil to come.
For “Money,” he rises from the floor like a demonic creature, clad in black with
skeletal markings and a helmet; for his cutely choreographed dance with a gorilla
and the anti-Semitic kick in the teeth of “If You Could See Her,” he’s in resplendent
clown costume; when he appears in a conventional, if immaculately tailored suit, it’s
quite a shock. The actor can sometimes be overly mannered (as on screen) and
misses the flesh-and-blood, wink-wink familiarity that Cumming gave the character.
But Redmayne remains audaciously effective, exuding charisma and menace,
along with a suggestion of melancholy in the margins, and with a degree of
showmanship that matches Cumming’s...
'Interestingly, Redmayne could just as easily have been cast as the writer (he bears
a passing resemblance to Michael York, from Bob Fosse’s film version), which
might have elevated Buckley closer toward her own, very high bar. But then
we wouldn’t have his Emcee, or half as much fun.'

Greg Stewart Theatre Weekly: 'As the Emcee, Redmayne gives the performance of the year,
playing the role differently to notable predecessors; less evil than Joel Grey and less lascivious
than Alan Cumming. Redmayne initially comes across as a more caring and compassionate
Emcee, almost a reassuring presence, which in itself is disconcerting given what the character
is supposed to represent. This changes in the second act when everything becomes much more
sinister, but where Redmayne really excels is in the way he conveys sadness, you can see it
quite literally in his eyes, and the audience can’t take their eyes off of him.'

Stuart Wilson to do list: Eddie Redmayne is a simply outstanding, astounding Emcee –
from his very first appearance, he holds the attention like the brightest star in the sky, and
his commitment to the role is breathtaking. This is an Emcee for the ages, which frankly
eclipses all those before it barring originator Joel Grey. There’s a danger, with a top-billing
Emcee, that the main thrust of the story can feel a bit ‘so what?’ – no danger here though,
because Jessie Buckley stakes a convincing claim for being THE Sally Bowles.

Emmy Griffiths Hello Magazine: 'Eddie Redmayne wastes no time in proving why he is
one of the best actors of his generation as the entrancing enigma that is Emcee. He goes
from clownish to sinister at every given turn, with his body and face contorting as
he descends from humorous frivolity to seething hatred, taking the raucous chorus –
an immensely talented group who appear to be having the time of their lives – along
for the ride with him. We also have to give a special shout out to Liza Sadovy, who is
wonderful as Fraulein Schneider.' (agree)

Jonathan Baz Reviews: 'Cabaret’s Emcee is one of the most ingenious creations of
late 20th century musical theatre. Almost like a Greek Chorus, or Lear’s Fool, he holds
up a mirror to the Club’s audience (literally, in this staging, the theatre audience),
parodying the hopes of the outside world (“Life is disappointing? Forget it”) while
equally mocking the rise of Nazism and the persecution of the Jews. As Redmayne
delivers If You Could See Her, the brutality of his satire chills to the bone.
The actor is a tour de force throughout the piece such that when he is at times mute in
the Finale, it only adds to the horrors that Germany as a nation will soon descend into.'

Musical Theatre Review: 'As the Emcee, Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne is a marvel
of physical commitment and unlikely charisma. He contorts his body beyond even
the most ambitious Fosse choreography, making hunched and twisted silhouettes
that discomfort and beguile. Throughout the evening, he changes into a number
of beautifully conceived and constructed outfits.
Costuming is outstanding across the board, but particularly so in the case of the Emcee
whose wardrobe reflects his shapeshifting, impossibly high-status presence in the show.'

All That Dazzles: It's not every day you get to see an Oscar winner in the West End. Eddie
Redmayne makes it clear why he is the proud recipient of that award with his astonishing
performance as The Emcee. His physicality is amazing to witness as he effortlessly contorts
his body and his features as the tone of the show changes. Eddie skulks around the stage
and audience as a constantly dominating presence - sometimes fun, sometimes sinister but
always captivating. He really delivers a performance that proves why is at the top of his game.

Photo by Marc Brenner via @mrcarl_woodward

Carl Woodward: 'I don’t think I have ever seen a more demented Emcee. I fell
headfirst into Redmayne’s shape-shifting approach here. There was a strange
menace to his otherworldly appearance, standing alone, facial features altered
by extraordinary makeup.
In his party hat and Bowie attire, Redmayne resembles some kind of pale, alien
clown being. Staking the stalls and swinging from the circle – you can’t take
your eyes off the Oscar winner. His crumpled physicality is a marvel. 
Like a first-rate evil clown, he twists his impish body and tongue around
the slippery role. He also has a beautiful singing voice.'

David Benedict Variety: 'The triumph – that’s not too strong a word – of director
Rebecca Frecknall’s stunner of a production is that, despite piercing performances
from Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne, her supremely intelligent, emotionally
draining vision of the show turns it, enthrallingly, into “All About Berlin.”...
Marshalling the almost circus-like atmosphere, forever insinuating himself amid
choreographer Julia Cheng’s highly individual, deliciously tawdry yet taut,
near-genderless dancers, Redmayne’s highly stylized Emcee is a cross between
a gleaming, lean and savage ringmaster and King Lear. It’s very definitely
A Performance, but it’s also utterly at one with the heightened tone of the club.
The staging of the initial rendition of “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” with Redmayne
gently crooning over a ravishing a cappella vocal arrangement beneath Isabella
Byrd’s alternately sepulchral and scalding lighting, is spectacularly chilling. It’s
highly stylized, with identical statues slowly revolving on a turntable, but that
degree of stylization paves the way for the extremes of Buckley’s arresting Sally.'

Simon Button Attitude: 'Our host for the evening, he is nothing like the impish
Joel Grey in the film version nor anything like the naughtily sexy Alan Cumming
in the London and Broadway revivals of the original stage musical.
No, Redmayne’s master of ceremonies is a physically twisted pierrot with a pointed
party hat atop his red wig, spitting out lyrics like ‘in here life is beautiful, the girls
are beautiful, even the orchestra is beautiful’ with sinister glee.
His angular, androgynous beauty has never been better used and he’s mesmerising -
the very epitome of a decaying Berlin as Weimer decadence is about to be trampled
underfoot by the Nazi Party.'

Fiona Mountford inews: 'Redmayne’s Emcee is a chillingly compelling host for this
party at the end of the world. He gives a weird, wired and wonderful performance,
by turns creepy, hunched and amiable, and at one point sports a costume I can only
describe as “Pierrot dresses as Richard III for Halloween”...'

Sarah Hemming Financial Times: Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley
thrill and chill in sensational Cabaret ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️



@jeneebouchard posted on Instagram: "maybe the best theater show I’ve ever ever
ever experienced. eddie redmayne was brilliant, magical and all together amazing..."
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXhiW4sJVKB/