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Front Row: Ian McKellen; theatre director Sarah Frankcom; Guilt reviewed

30/10/2019

Ian McKellen; theatre director Sarah Frankcom; Guilt reviewed

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Ian McKellen; theatre director Sarah Frankcom; Guilt reviewed

Ian McKellen on his film The Good Liar. He plays an elderly conman. It's akin to acting.

Ian McKellen on playing a con artist who moves in on a  rich widow played by Helen Mirren in The Good Liar. He pretends to be someone he's not, so  McKellen's acting acting.

In their new film, The Good Liar,  Ian McKellen plays Roy Courtnay, a con artist who when he meets Betty McLeish, a well-to-widow played by Helen Mirren, can't believe his luck. Sir Ian talks to John Wilson about this role, which involves playing someone who is himself acting.    

Guilt, a new 4-part BBC Two drama set in Edinburgh, stars Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives as two very different brothers who find themselves having to join forces when they run over and kill a man. As they cover their tracks they begin to discover they can trust no-one, including each other. Critic Hannah McGill reviews the contemporary black comedy drama.

The Observer’s theatre critic Susannah Clapp said of Sarah Frankcom, artistic director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, that she was 'creating England’s first mainstream feminist theatre'. Now Frankcom is directing her final production there, Light Falls by Simon Stephens. She talks about this drama of a northern family, her collaborations with Stephens, who has written several plays for the Exchange and, especially, Maxine Peake, whom she cast as Hamlet. Frankcom's next job will be running the drama school LAMDA and she tells John Wilson of her concern about the training of actors because of the expense and the decline of drama teaching in schools. 

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Producer: Julian May

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