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Theatre & Drama
Playhouse: Live ‘The Typist’
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Gemma Jones and Tobi Bakare star in Rebecca Lenkiewicz's 'The Typist'
The Typist
Gemma Jones as 'Mary Parks' and Tobi Bakare as 'Fit' on set
The Typist
Gemma Jones and Tobi Bakare rehearse and go through lines in preparation for the opening night of Rebecca Lenkiewicz's play
The Typist
Bijan Sheibani, director of 'The Typist', has won many awards but also recently received an Olivier nomination for Best Director for 'Tadeusz Slobodzianek's Our Class'
The Typist
A snap-shot of one of the fiery exchanges between the characters whilst on the extremely detailed and intricately designed set
The Typist
In a career that spans over 30 years Gemma Jones has starred in the Harry Potter movies, Bridget Jones' Diary and many other great films and plays
The Typist
Does Mary Parks have a drinking problem? Does she swear too much? And is it too late for 20 year old 'Fit' to change her views on life?
The Typist
Tobi Bakare has starred in a host of top television series such as 'The Bill', 'Holby City', 'Casualty' and more. Here he gives a sterling performance of 'Fit', a young man who's hired by Mary Parks (Gemma Jones) to type up her notes due to her diminishing eyesight
The Typist by Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Mary Parks, 70, is an artist and photographer who has lost her sight in the past two years. She employs a young Asian boy, Fit, 20, to type up her notes for her. An odd relationship emerges.
Fit is passionate about astronomy and Parks about colour. Parks asks Fit to help her to die. Fit refuses. He and Parks try to persuade each other to their way of thinking. Is life sacred in itself or is it only to be revered when one's existence is a full one?
Gemma Jones / Mary Parks
Gemma Jones trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where she won the Bankcroft Gold Medal in 1962. Theatre credits include: Family Reunion and Mystery of the Rose Bouquet (Donmar Warehouse), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Lyric Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire and Next of Kin (National Theatre), Hamlet (Birmingham Repertory Theatre) and The Homecoming (Garrick Theatre).
Television credits include: Spooks, Secret Diary of Anne Lister, Jayne Eyre, The Cherry Orchard, Ballet Shoes and The Duchess of Duke Street.
Film credits include: Sense & Sensibility, Harry Potter, Bridget Jones’ Diary, The Winslow Boy and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.
Tobi Bakare / Fit
Tobi Bakare is currently training at Identity Drama School – The UK’s First Black Drama School. Theatre credits to date include: High Life (Hampstead Theatre), Iya Ile (Soho Theatre), 1800 Acres (Riverside Studios), Gone Too Far (Royal Court Theatre), Street Magic (Kings Head Theatre), Mangina Monologues (Soho Theatre), Torn and Totally Over You (Arcola Theatre) and Macbeth (Out of Joint Theatre Company). Television credits include: The Bill ITV, Holby City BBC, Silent Witness BBC, Meet The Bandais E4, Casualty BBC, The Omid Djalili Show BBC and Dani’s House BBC.
Tobi is due to begin filming on a six-part drama The Shadow Line for BBC2.
Bijan Sheibani / Director
Bijan is Artistic Director of ATC and an associate director at the National Theatre. He read English Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and went on to the Central School of Speech and Drama where he received a distinction for his MA in Advanced Theatre Practice.
He won the James Menzies-Kitchin Memorial Trust Award for Young Directors in 2003 and the John S Cohen Bursary at the National Theatre Studio from April 2004 - April 2005. His sell-out productions of Gone Too Far! by Bola Agbaje and The Brothers Size by Tarell McCraney were both nominated for the 2008 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. Gone Too Far! won.
The Brothers Size won the Spanish critics circle award for best international production 2008. Bijan’s recent work with ATC includes Ibsen’s Ghosts in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz at the Arcola, and Euridice by Sarah Ruhl at Plymouth Drum, UK tour and the Young Vic. He recently directed Tadeusz Slobodzianek's Our Class at the National, for which he received an Olivier nomination for Best Director.
Rebecca Lenkiewicz / Playwright
Theatre plays include The Lioness ( Tricycle Theatre 2010), Her Naked Skin (National Theatre, Olivier, 2008), Soho – A Tale of Table Dancers (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First, opening of Arcola Theatre 2001), The Night Season (National Theatre, Cottesloe), which won the Critics’ Circle Award 2004 for Most Promising Playwright).
Shoreditch Madonna (Soho Theatre, 2005), Blue Moon Over Poplar (NYT/Soho Theatre), Faeries ( Royal Opera House), and Justitia (Sadlers Wells).
Adaptations include An Enemy of the People ( Arcola 2008), Ghosts ( For ATC at the Arcola 2009) and Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale ( Old Vic). Radio Dramas includes Sarah and Ken ( BBC Radio 3), Fighting For Words ( BBC Radio 4) and Caravan of Desire ( BBC Radio 4). Her prose has been published in Granta and The New Statesman.
Naomi Dawson / Designer
Previous theatre design work includes: The Gods Weep (RSC), The Glass Menagerie (Shared Experience), Krieg Der Bilder (Staatstheater, Mainz), Rutherford and Son (Northern Stage), Three More Sleepless Nights (National Theatre), The Container (Young Vic), King Pelican, Speed Death of the Radiant Child (Drum Theatre, Plymouth), Amgen: Broken (Sherman Cymru), If That’s All There Is (Lyric), State of Emergency and Mariana Pineda (Gate), ...Sisters (Gate/Headlong), Can any Mother Help Me? (Foursight, UK Tour), Stallerhof, Richard III, The Cherry Orchard, and Summer Begins (Southwark Playhouse), Phaedra's Love (Barbican Pit and Bristol Old Vic), Different Perspectives (Contact Theatre), The Pope's Wedding and Forest of Thorns (Young Vic Studio), Market Tales (Unicorn), Attempts on Her Life, Widows and Touched (BAC), In Blood, Venezuela, Mud, Trash, and Headstone (Arcola), Pass the Parcel (Theatre Royal, Stratford), A Thought in Three Parts (Burton Taylor).
Film credits include costume design for the short film Love After a Fashion and set design for Fragile by Idris Khan. Naomi is also part of artists collective SpRoUt recently exhibiting in Galerija SC, Zagreb.
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