Photos from the aftershow party of ‘The Mysteries: Yiimimangaliso’ at The Crypt on September 15, 2009 in London, England. Jeremy’s son Max Irons was also in attendance.
Some photos by Dafydd Jones Photography.
Click on the thumbnails for larger images:
Click the links to read reviews of Georgia O’Keeffe
Jeremy Irons defends Alfred Stieglitz, applauds Joan Allen
Jeremy Irons as Alfred Stieglitz in "Georgia O'Keeffe"
Jeremy Irons was interviewed by Slovak TV presenter Alena Heribanova on her show Guardian Angels.
Jeremy Irons and Alena Heribanova
Google Translation from the Slovak:
BRATISLAVA – British actor Jeremy Irons (60) accepted an invitation to the session estévečkarskej guardian angel. In it, among other things, talk presenter Heribanová Alene (54) difficult moments of his life. Missed injuries, smash and even mentioned the bitter experience which can not forget this day.
In telling his experience the actor had thoughts stray to ancient times when even he could not speak and the world “vozilom” the pram. “My mother has deposited him in one day for my afternoon sleep. She went into the kitchen. I remained unattended and accidentally I have him unlock the brake. Unfortunately it was in the garden on a slope, and I began to plunge downhill. I remember I was hanging half out and saw mom come up from the kitchen in aprons with a wooden spoon, “he recalls the chilling moments actor.
Mother Barbara fortunately managed to capture a small time Jeremy, but … “I sat back in the bag and turn to him the anger Scotia. So I flew into a large bed of melons. Subsequently somni stroller rolled and I fell, “finished talking to the first holder of the memories of his life, Oscar. In addition, a few bruises and scratches to several months Irons fortunately nothing serious happened.
What else about your life, career and family, told in an open interview with famous Slovak moderator? It is here today to roll in the evening session guardian angel.
[Webmaster’s interpretation of this translation: It seems that Jeremy was interviewed by famous Slovak TV presenter Alena Heribanova. In this interview Jeremy told a story of when he was a baby and his mother had put him down for a nap in a pram. Somehow, the brake unlocked and a young Jeremy, in the pram, rolled down the hill in the garden into a bed of melons, toppling the pram. Fortunately, his mother rescued him from serious harm, though he did suffer some bruises and scratches.]
DEIRDRE FALVEY, Arts Editor
BRIAN FRIEL doesn’t go in much for public speaking. And if he was going to make a speech, this past weekend, one of the focal points of his 80th birthday year, was probably going to be the occasion.
Friel spoke entertainingly and at uncharacteristic length on Saturday night but, more characteristically, placed the emphasis on someone other than himself.
The week just past featured rehearsed readings of three plays he chose from the Abbey’s repertoire, the opening of the three Gate/Friel productions in Dublin, following their Sydney and Edinburgh festival triumphs, and his handprints were taken on Friday to be cast in bronze for display at the Gaiety Theatre Plaza.
The Gate organised a thank you party for about 100 people at the Unicorn restaurant on Saturday and last night there was a glitzy tribute at the Abbey.
There have been quite a few celebrations in this birthday year, Friel acknowledged on Saturday night, so much so that “I now think I’m pushing 83”.
He mentioned the readings during the week, and “the hooley” tomorrow, “and I’m grateful to Fiach for that. Michael Colgan rowed in and did three full productions. Some few people have difficulty with Michael,” he continued, to loud laughter from the assembled. “They all think perhaps that Michael is a bit too much. I don’t think so. And Anne [Friel] doesn’t think so.” And he thanked Colgan for the “friendship and support and fealty” he has given him.
Then he said he wanted to remind people that this Faith Healer was “directed by a man we’ll refer to as the Scottish director,” [Robin Lefevre is credited as director of the play in the Gate programme]. “And when the Scottish director disappeared, Mr Colgan took over and did an excellent job.” So Friel suggested there might be an “uneasy spectacle” when “the best producer in the country might become the best director in the country, and would be damn near unbearable”.
Friel’s actual birthday was in January, and Colgan said “it’s safe to say his birthday is well and truly done and dusted. ‘A finished thing’,” quoting Grace Harvey in Faith Healer . So the party was to say thank you to Brian Friel, for the “many reasons we have to be grateful” to him: “for his relish of language, his loathing of sentimentality, his glorious irreverence, his keen avoidance of the amateur, his unquestioned integrity, his unswerving loyalty to the work, his hungry eye, his steadfast ability to hold a grudge, his generosity even with his cigars (and they’re expensive ones too), his late-night gossip, his perfectly timed acts of kindness, his private standards of excellence and above all, we are grateful for the gift of his magnificent plays and the opulence of his words.”
The party was starry, and among those packed into the restaurant were Ian McKellan, Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Seamus Heaney, John McColgan, Moya Doherty, Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins, Harry Crosbie, Mike Murphy, Edna O’Brien, Tom Kilroy and Conor McPherson.
The tribute event last night at the Abbey was hosted by Sinéad Cusack and directed by Patrick Mason.
Friel’s association with the Abbey goes back to 1962 when The Enemy Within was produced, the first of eight world premieres of his at the national theatre. The tribute featured excerpts from Dancing at Lughnasa (featuring the original cast of Mundy sisters – Rosaleen Linehan, Anita Reeves, Brid Brennan, Catherine Byrne and Bríd Ní Neachtain), Philadelphia Here I Come , and Translations , with the other casts also including Ciaran Hinds, Eamon Morrissey, Des Cave, Charlie Bonner and Darragh Kelly.
Music ranging from Cole Porter to John Field – performed by John O’Conor, Conor Linehan, Cora Venus Lunny and soprano Celine Byrne – was central to the evening and emblematic of the role of music in his work. And the surprise of the night was special tributes from Seamus Heaney and Tom Kilroy.
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
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‘Many more years, Brian’
DEIRDRE FALVEY – Irishtimes.com
The Abbey’s 80th birthday tribute to Brian Friel was a celebration of his work and life that featured words, plays and above all music
HAD THE PHOTOGRAPHER engineered it? There was Brian Friel sitting upstairs at the Abbey chatting with an eccentrically hatted Jeremy Irons (looking very A Month in the Country , or like a Beckett character). All around them milled theatre folk, there for the Abbey’s birthday tribute night for Friel, MC-d by actor (and Irons’s wife) Sinead Cusack. On second thoughts, surely no one could set those two gentlemen up for a scene like that.
Onstage, with backdrop from The Rivals set – an enormous painting of the big house, very suitable for the evening – and a large piano centre stage, there was an elegance and a formality to the beautifully composed and moving evening, drawn together by director Patrick Mason, who also scripted Cusack’s Canticle for Master Friel .
“The tools that are available to the playwright to tell his story are few enough – words, action, silence. In the theatre that has engaged me words are at the very core of it all. But the playwrights’ words aren’t written for solitary engagement – they are written for public utterance. So unlike the words of the novelist or poet, they are scored in altogether different keys, and in altogether different tempi. And it is with this score that the playwright and the actor privately plot to work their public spell.” Cusack thus animatedly quoted the great spell-master himself to start, “to create our own ‘public canticle’, to honour the achievement of this most meticulous and accomplished of playwrights”.
There were words, there were the plays, and above all there was the music.
Playwright Tom Kilroy invoked the name of Chekhov, and spoke about how both playwrights communicated so much through letters. And though he regards letters as being intended for the eyes of those to whom they are addressed – “I take my life in my hands”– he read from a letter from Friel last year following their pilgrimage to Yalta, visiting two Chekhov homes there. Friel wrote afterwards to Kilroy about how “we did lift the veil, there certainly was a presence”, but how “there was another veil behind that and we got no further”. Kilroy said Friel might have been writing about the stage itself, “the secrets and silences, the veils and concealments, a place of mystery, which harbours the inexpressible”. He ended with a gentle “Many more years, Brian”.
Later in the evening, Seamus Heaney read four short poems related to “the work and the worker we celebrate here”, “the mastery and the mystery, the dedication and dochas”. The Stations of the West recalled his first adolescent trip to the Donegal gaeltacht, and his first experience of Friel’s county; a 12th- century poem was attributed to St Colmcille, whose name is lent to the college they both attended.
Sprinkled throughout the evening were, Cusack said, “Brians words read in what Mrs Malaprop might describe as ‘invocations’ of three of his greatest plays”.
In Philadelphia, Here I Come! an inscrutable Eamon Morrisey (reading from his own original copy of the play; the other actors on the night had uniform red-bound extracts) as SB O’Donnell to Darragh Kelly’s Gar Private, along with Rosaleen Linehan as Madge, Charlie Bonner as Gar Public and Des Cave as Canon Mick O’Byrne. There was great humour as well as pathos in the readings from it, and from Translations , which had Ciaran Hinds as Hugh to Nick Dunning’s Captain Lancey, Darragh Kelly’s Owen and Rory Nolan’s Lieutenant Yolland, also with Brid Brennan and Des Cave.
Later, the final “invocation” of the evening was Dancing at Lughnasa , a play which might be seen as his most musical (New York producers apparently suggested it might be more effectively retitled Dancin! said Cusack.)
As she called out the cast list, and particularly the Mundy sisters – Rosaleen Linehan, Anita Reeves, Brid Brennan, Catherine Byrne, Bríd Ní Neachtain, together again all these years later – there were audible intakes of breath, and whispered comments of pleasure and anticipation from the audience.
Above all it was an evening of songs and music, from the plays and as a background influence on them. Conor Linehan (piano) and Cora Venus Lunny (violin) played a selection of Jerome Kern and Cole Porter melodies from the 1930s, which animate that golden Ballybeg summer of 1936, introduce the fantastic Francis Hardy, and accompany Terry Martin and his friends on their island pilgrimage in Wonderful Tennessee : from Dancing in the Dark to Just the Way You Look Tonight, to a gorgeous Anything Goes , full of panache and fun. Later Linehan was back on the keys, accompanying soprano Celine Byrne with evocative songs from the plays, ending with a spine-tingling Oft in the Stilly Night .
And later still, there was a special appearance by pianist John O’Conor, who movingly played three nocturnes – though the third, Le Midi , O’Conor pointed out, was not strictly speaking a nocturne at all – by John Field, the Irish pianist and composer who invented the nocturne and is beloved of Friel.
The evening ended for the audience with a cake and a standing ovation for a visibly thrilled Friel, sitting beside his wife, Anne, and Abbey director Fiach MacConghail; and for the key members of the party the evening went on much later still.
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
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And he felt at home in this theater to thrive’
JEREMY IRONS
“When I saw the Olympic I felt at home.” No, talking is not a Vicenza, but a great British actor of cinema and theater. Jeremy Irons, who landed in Vicenza yesterday afternoon to attend the seventh edition of the Premio Eti, introduced himself as the press in the meeting held in the afternoon to the Councilor. The English, who received the special award “for his extraordinary ability to combine screen and stage, with equal passion and rigor, and in particular for the interpretation of the character of Antonio in the movie “The Merchant of Venice”, was literally fascinated by the theater. A masterpiece in his life had not ever seen, and that once fell from the car in Piazza Matteotti, and slingshots you to visit.
We did not know where to stop and then we chose a city of Padua or Verona, I do not remember which of the two. In any case, we skipped Vicenza, and we have not seen the theater was really a disgrace. Now that I have visited I can say that it is spectacular. ”
What did it feel when you entered?
The first thing I saw was the door with the wooden structure. Then we went for a ramp and suddenly I found myself inside. It is built with a mix that makes him seem a romantic place of work but also a laboratory for ideas.
Came to mind looking at other theaters?
I immediately thought of the Royal Theater in Bristol, the building where I started and I conveyed the same feeling of Olympus, despite the Royal is a more recent. The spirit of what happened inside the impregnating and that is the beauty you feel the sensation of living. If this theater was used as a museum, would not have had the same fascination. Yet today I felt right at home.
It will then climb an emotion even though for an awards ceremony?
Yes, and I regret not being there to play, even if they are happy to play a few bars of the Merchant of Venice.
If he had to be on this stage his show, which character would have liked to play?
I do not know, because there are different. I could say Prospero, however, I do not speak Italian, and when you go to the theater is important to understand what the actor says. She is a great actor as well as film and theater even in these days in Venice is taking the international exhibition.
Took the opportunity to visit?
No, usually attend the festival only if there are my films in the race. I went to see only the Arsenal, and they told me that the film festival in Venice was a bit ‘disappointing this year.
You know very well the lagoon city.
Can you say what are the differences between the Venice film and the real one?
I am fascinated by this city and I really enjoy talking to people who live there, which is why I consider it alive and real. Certainly, compared to film is no longer a business empire but is the center of tourism.
In addition to acting also approached the role of director.
Yes, over the years my interest has increased. I love to be involved fully in the film and the director is always at the center. I also really like helping others to achieve their performance.
Nicola Negrin
Jeremy Irons was among 100 celebrity guests of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla at a party at Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, to thank them for their support of the Prince’s Trust charity over the years.
Check out the Daily Mail Online for more about the event.
Prince party to thank ambassadors
(UKPA) – 7 hours ago
The Prince of Wales thanked pop stars, actors and sports personalities for their support of The Prince’s Trust at a garden party.
Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall held the reception at their Highgrove home near Tetbury, in Gloucestershire. Among the some 100 guests were some of the first celebrity ambassadors for the trust including Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Phillip Schofield and Gary Lineker, who took part in some of the earliest schemes and fundraising events for the charity.
They were joined by stars including Sir Ben Kingsley, Amanda Burton, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Jeremy Irons, Joss Stone, Kate Adie, and Aleisha Dixon, ahead of her debut as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, who was seen enjoying a joke with Charles.
The celebrity ambassadors were given a tour of the Highgrove estate before having lunch of an asparagus and pea risotto followed by summer berries with pannacotta.
Charles and Camilla spoke with their guests, some of them friends, about the work of the Prince’s Trust.
Prince’s Trust ambassadors take part in a variety of activities to support the youth charity, including helping to raise funds and awareness.
The Prince’s Trust gives practical and financial support to help disadvantaged young people aged between 14 and 30 develop workplace skills.
Gary Lineker and new wife Danielle returned from Italy where they were married last week to attend the party and also to see the new Mrs Lineker’s daughter Ella off to school. Lineker said: “I have been a Prince’s Trust ambassador for going back 20 years and it is has been a real privilege to be able to meet people who have benefited from the scheme and turned their life around.”
Copyright © 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
Jeremy Irons moderates the Golden Plate Awards ceremonies at the 2009 International Achievement Summit in Cape Town, South Africa.
Jeremy Irons in a moment of reflection at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa.
Jeremy Irons before an afternoon symposium at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit.
Jeremy Irons shares a tender moment with Rosie Mashale, founder of the Baphumelele orphanage during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa.
Jeremy Irons lends a hand during lunch at the Baphumelele orphanage in Khayelitsha Township near Cape Town, South Africa while attending the 2009 International Achievement Summit.
Jeremy Irons and Dr. Jane Goodall
The Hollywood Exclusive: Jeremy Irons Defends Alfred Stieglitz, Applauds Joan Allen
by Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
Jeremy Irons, who plays the world-renowned photographer Alfred Stieglitz in Lifetime’s Sept. 19-debuting “Georgia O’Keeffe,” comes to the defense of the man with whom O’Keefe engaged in a turbulent 20-year relationship.
The Oscar, Emmy and Tony-award-winning actor declares, “Stieglitz was difficult, but forgivable. O’Keeffe loved him until the day he died. I do think creative people like she need a partner who excites them deeply, and that person does not have to be the easiest to live with. I wonder if she would have become a great artist without him. Sometimes we need a thorn to make us realize our greatness.”
Irons continues, “Granted, Stieglitz was difficult to live with. He had a record of picking talent for his art gallery and controlling them until it got so bad, they moved on. Georgia had to go to New Mexico to get away from him, but she never stopped loving him.”
Irons has nothing but kudos for his leading lady. “Joan Allen was born to play Georgia O’Keeffe,” he says. And, he adds, the story of O’Keeffe and Stieglitz was born to be made. He just can’t understand why it took so long to make it.
“It was shopped around for about seven or eight years as a motion picture and could never find a taker,” he reveals. And then, he notes, “It was offered to HBO and they turned it down. That was a shame. It was a big mistake. I must tell you, when I saw the completed film, I was thrilled.”
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