- Prism, a new play by award-winning Terry Johnson about the legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff debuts at the Hampstead Theatre’s main stage this week. During a career that spanned the development of cinema from silent film through to early experiments in Technicolor, Cardiff worked with a number of influential film-makers including Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and Alfred Hitchcock. Johnson, whose credits for Hampstead Theatre include Hysteria starring Antony Sher, locates Johnson in his retirement years in the sleepy village of Denham. Starring Robert Lindsay, who is returning to the theatre after 35 years, and Claire Skinner, Prism sees Cardiff struggling to gather together memories from a lifetime of “painting with light” including his liaisons with some of the world’s most famous women – a lifetime that he doesn’t want to leave behind. Also this month, No One Will Tell Me How To Start A Revolution is on the Downstairs stage at Hampstead Theatre. Written by Luke Barnes, it’s the story of three sisters, the pressures of being a teenager and the fight for acceptance. For details call 020 7722 9301.
- Film and stage actor Ian McDiarmid will appear at Park Theatre from September 27 playing British politician Enoch Powell in What Shadows. In Chris Hannan’s play, Amelia Donkor is cast as Rose Cruickshank, an Oxford academic and daughter of a Caribbean immigrant who wants to find out what led the MP to make the “rivers of blood” speech in 1968 that had such as impact on her childhood. Details on 020 7722 9301.
