Douglas Henshall: Shetland preview, Doors Open update, The Secrety of Crickley Hall reviews

 

From Douglas Henshall.com:

Douglas Henshall will be on the panel of judges for the Frank Deasy Writers award 2012 – 2013.
BBC Scotland has announced its plans to offer residencies for writers to develop ideas for BBC1, in hopes that one of their dramas will be commissioned through BBC Scotland.
Dougie said: “Writers are so crucial to drama – without them, people like me are out of work, so to be involved in this award is an honour. After all, writers are the past, present and future for drama.”
More here.

Dougie’s new TV drama Shetland, based on the work of popular crime-writer Ann Cleeves had a preview in Mareel on Wednesday 21st November 2012. Read about the event here and here

The Secret of Crickley Hall episode 2 will be shown on Sunday November 25th at 9pm and episode 3 on Sunday December 2nd at 9pm. A DVD of the drama is due to be released on December 3rd 2012.

Doors Open is being adverstised as part of ITV's Christmas drama season.

55 Days finished its run at the Hampstead Theatre on Saturday November 24th.
Source (including photo):  DouglasHenshall.com


There are detailed reviews of  the first episode of The Secret of Crickley Hall at Primetime and at SFX

MY SIX BEST BOOKS- DOUGLAS HENSHALL

Douglas Henshall, 47, is the actor best known as the star of Primeval, South Riding, Lipstick on Your Collar and Collision. He stars next month alongside Stephen Fry in the ITV1 art heist drama Doors Open.

Douglas Henshall discusses his favourite reads
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Penguin, £10.99
A book about love and roulette – a giddy mixture.

I find my spirits soaring at the way he writes about love and plummeting to the very depths of hell at the way he writes about addiction. Gloriously romantic in that reckless Russian way.

If This Is A Man by Primo Levi
Abacus, £9.99
A most extraordinary book and the one which has had the biggest influence on me. An unimaginable story about his time in Auschwitz and the way he manages to keep his humanity alive and survive.

Heartbreaking, uplifting and humbling in ways I can’t begin to describe.

Summer Lightning by P G Wodehouse
Arrow, £7.99
The antithesis of Primo Levi. I adore all the Blandings books.

It’s a safe world where nothing bad is going to happen with the most glorious wit and the most absurd characters.
I’ve re-read and re-read them. They’re like Christmas; they never fail to put a smile on your face.

Women
by Charles Bukowski
Virgin Books, £8.99
Bukowski can be incredibly nihilistic. You can only read him in small doses before you want to kill yourself.

He was a man who wrote when drunk and edited when sober and there’s a brutal honesty with which he talks about himself and his success or failure in relationships with women. I found it quite poetic.

Trainspotting
by Irvine Welsh
Vintage, £7.99
I don’t think you can overestimate how important a book this was.

To use the Leith vernacular in the way he did, the rhythms and the poetry, it was a revolution in Scotland.

He talks about male friendship better than anyone and is the most important Scottish writer around.

The Gulag Archipelago
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Harper Perennial, £18.95
Sometimes I admire the people as much as what they write and this is an extraordinary piece by an extraordinary man.

It’s about incarceration by an unjust, criminal and inhumane people but the way in which he writes, well, I want to say this out loud walking around my house, not just read it.

Source (including photo): Express
 

Douglas Henshall: '55 Days' interview, reviews, Press Night

Q&A: Douglas Henshall
From the cult 90s series Lipstick On Your Collar to sci-fi favourite Primeval, the critically acclaimed Scottish actor Douglas Henshall is rarely off our screens. Luckily for us, he’s also a stage favourite and following his last outing opposite Kristin Scott Thomas in 2011’s West End production of Betrayal, he’s back at the Hampstead theatre in a very different role, this time portraying infamous politician and soldier Oliver Cromwell in Howard Brenton’s 55 Days, a drama set during one of the most turbulent periods of English history.

As the cast prepares for a hopefully less turbulent period, the show’s official opening tonight, we challenged Henshall to our quick-fire quiz and discovered a secret kitchen habit, how his mother is responsible for the proudest moment in his career and why a pink palace always wins him over.

What first sparked your interest in performing?
Watching my friends who were in a youth theatre in my home town of Barrhead [in Scotland] and it looked like fun so I went along to audition.

In 55 Days you play Oliver Cromwell who famously supported the trial of King Charles I. If you could put anyone dead or alive on trial now, who would it be? 
Margaret Thatcher for all the obvious reasons, closely followed by Tony Blair.

If you were in politics, which law would you pass straight away and why?
That all big corporations should pay their fair share of tax.

Have you done a lot of research for 55 Days and the period it is set in?
The play is incredibly well researched and I took almost everything I needed from the play. Most biographies of Cromwell are very dry and fact-based and aren’t based on him as a man.

Are you taking inspiration from anyone in particular to play the role?
Cromwell is inspiring enough.

Stage or screen? 
They are both equally attractive in their own way.

What is your favourite city in the world? 
Buenos Aires. Anywhere where the presidential palace is pink has to have something going for it.

What has been your proudest moment of your career so far?
Being at the RSC was a very big deal for my mother. She was delighted that I was in Stratford-upon-Avon and thought I had finally made it. So for the amount of pleasure that it gave my mum, I would say that would be one of the best moments.

What advice would you like to impart on the world?
None!

What could you not be without?
My wife.

Do you have any passions people might be surprised to hear about?
Cooking. I make the best chicken soup this side of Golders Green.

Where do you head after a performance? 
Home.

How would you like to be remembered?
Over a drink.

What would you choose as a last meal?
My mother in law’s sea bass.

If you weren’t an actor, what would you be?
A tennis player.

What ambitions do you have left to achieve? 
Too many to mention…

• 55 Days - Hampstead Theatre
• Age Suitability: General
• Genre: Play
• opening night: 24.10.2012
• box Office: 020 7722 9301 

Source (including photo above): Official London Theatre

Reviews:
The Arts Desk
Rev Stan's Theatre Blog 
London Evening Standard 
What's On Stage
The Times (full article here)

55 Days - Press Night photos and reviews

Wednesday (24 Oct) was Press Night at Hampstead Theatre for 55 Days. Guests included Penny Smith, Zoe Wanamaker and Stephen Fry.
★★★★ The Guardian
‘The real pleasure lies in seeing a pivotal moment in English history presented with such fervent dramatic power’
★★★★ The Times
‘Douglas Henshall, gives us a still, burning, troubled Cromwell, part politician, part zealot, jabbing at Bible verses. Mark Gatiss, beaky and disdainful with a camp Morningside diction, beautifully delivers Brenton’s 17th-century rhythms, especially in Charles’s authentic lines’
★★★★ The Telegraph
‘At its considerable best, the play depicts the political process with clarity and vigour’
★★★★ Independent
‘The only figure in seventeenth century costume is Charles I, rivetingly played by Mark Gatiss with a Scots burr, an ironically edged sense of total entitlement, and a gasping stammer of revulsion and fear whenever he has to pronounce the words “people” and “parliament”’
★★★★ Financial Times
‘Absorbing and rich, 55 Days is a rewarding warning against revolutions that turn 360 degrees’
★★★★ Daily Mail
‘Douglas Henshall’s Cromwell is an unexpected creation. Mr Henshall makes him almost a male model at times, fussing about his own blond hairdo and turning up his jacket collar to look just so’

Source (including photo above, and more): Hampstead Theatre 

Douglas Henshall: 'The Secrety of Crickley Hall' airdates, 'Shetland' interview, and '55 Days' rehearsal photos

The Secret of Crickley Hall
BBC America has announced that it will be showing The Secret of Crickley Hall, in which Douglas Henshall stars as Augustus Cribben, on October 28th 2012. The Three-hour event “The Secret of Crickley Hall” premières Sunday, October 28, 8:00pm ET/PT.

There will be a BAFTA TV preview of The Secret of Crickley Hall on Saturday November 3rd 2012, 4.30pm at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, followed by Q and A with Director Joe Ahearne. The event is part of the Mayhem Horror Festival, which takes place from October 31st till November 4th 2012.
More info here

A DVD of the drama is expected to be released in the UK on November 5th, which the BBFC has rated a 15. 

Source: Livejournal

Douglas Henshall – My Autumn

This versatile actor has worked all over the world – but he was blown away by the welcome in Shetland

Filming Shetland went really well. I enjoyed working there very much because of how friendly, welcoming and accommodating all the people were. They couldn’t have done any more for us – we did some Up Helly Aa scenes and the people who participated in that were amazing. They looked fantastic in all their gear. All the people who helped us with locations were great, too.

I had never been to Shetland before, it had always been a kind of mythological place for me. One of the nice things about my job is that you get to go to places. I hope we make another Shetland drama because then I’ll get to go back there. Everybody who was involved wants there to be another one, so fingers crossed. I think it’ll be good – we certainly all did everything we could to make it work.

My character is different to most TV detectives. He’s a pretty happy, solid guy just trying to do his job. He’s not battling any demons.

I stayed in the Kvelsdro Hotel in Lerwick (check), which was great. We didn’t get much time off while we were there, but we did have one great night in Lerwick Boat Club where a lot of musicians came and played. We sat and listened and also had a bit of a hooly and it was fantastic. I’ll remember that for a long time.

Now I’m looking forward to doing some theatre in the autumn. I’m appearing in the Howard Brenton play, 55 Days, at the Hampstead Theatre in London. I play Oliver Cromwell. There’s nothing quite like live theatre, but I wouldn’t say I have a preference between theatre, TV and films. I like the variety.

Autumn’s always a time to look forward to. It’s my favourite time of year, in fact, with all the fantastic colours – especially in Scotland.

I do quite a lot of travelling, and I’ve been to some fantastic places. I went to Buenos Aires with a production of Macbeth, and that was a city I really liked. Any city where the government building is pink has to have something going for it. I also made a film in India, and that’s the most extraordinary place. I’d like to go back there again.

I’m not sure where I’ll be going next – I’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully I’ll get some time to relax. I like playing poker – it’s nice to have to use your mind in a completely different way. It takes me out of myself. I also like to play a bit of tennis, and do a bit of cooking, but most of all I just like to spend time with my friends.

Douglas, who hails from Renfrewshire, plays the lead role of detective Jimmy Perez in Shetland, a two-part drama written by David Kane, and adapted from the books by Ann Cleeves. Perhaps best known as the academic action man Nick Cutter in Primeval, his many other TV credits include South Riding, The Silence and Collision. Shetland will air on BBC 1 soon – keep an eye on the schedules.

Source: Aurora Magazine

55 Days : In Rehearsals

Photo gallery at Hampstead Theatre

Douglas Henshall to star in '55 Days'

55 Days: full casting announced

Mark Gatiss’ King Charles I will be joined by Douglas Henshall who shall be taking on the role of Oliver Cromwell in Howard Brenton’s new play, 55 Days, which explores the dramatic aftermath of the English Civil War. The full cast will be as follows: Abigail Cruttenden, Daniel Flynn, Matthew Flynn, Richard Henders, Simon Kunz, Gerald Kyd, John Mackay, Jordan Mifsud, Gerard Monaco, Laura Rogers, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Jem Wall and James Wallace.

Directed by Howard Davies, 55 Days depicts the culmination of the mid-seventeenth century. In these dangerous and dramatic times, in a country exhausted by Civil War, the great men of the day were trying to think the unthinkable: to create a country without a king.

Read more at Hampstead Theatre

More details from the Douglas Henshall blog at Live Journal:

Douglas Henshall will be joining Mark Gatiss in Howard Brenton’s new play, 55 Days at The Hampstead Theatre from October 18th 2012. Dougie is taking on the role of Oliver Cromwell and Mark Gatiss wil play King Charles I. The play explores the dramatic aftermath of the English Civil War.

The full cast will be as follows: Abigail Cruttenden, Daniel Flynn, Matthew Flynn, Richard Henders, Simon Kunz, Gerald Kyd, John Mackay, Jordan Mifsud, Gerard Monaco, Laura Rogers, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Jem Wall and James Wallace.

Directed by Howard Davies, 55 Days runs from October 18th, 2012 until November 24th, 2012. Book tickets here.

Douglas Henshall previously appeared at The Hampstead Theatre in 2004, playing the role of Thomas Huxley in Darwin in Malibu.

Source: Live Journal

Also reported by What's On Stage