Dickie Beau

Last updated
Dickie Beau
Born
Richard Royce
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Film and stage actor
Awards Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award (2014)

Richard Boyce, known professionally as Dickie Beau, [1] [2] [3] is a British film and stage actor. His stage performances often involve lip-synching to archival audio recordings. [4] [2] [5]

Contents

Early life

At the age of five, Beau played the Handsome Prince in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and knew he wanted to act. [4] His childhood idols included Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. [6]

Beau trained in drama at Manchester University, and subsequently worked in a Milan theatre company, Teatro della Contraddizione, whose work was inspired by Pina Bausch. [7] [8]

Technique

Beau's use of lip-synching was inspired by the drag queen Suppositori Spelling, who he met in London in 2006. [9] [7] An additional inspiration for his technique was the journalist Richard Meryman. [10] [11] [12] Beau sometimes lip-synchs to his own voice, sometimes to those of other performers. [13] [14] He calls the technique "rememberment", [9] [7] and it has also been described as "hauntological dramaturgy". [15]

Stage work

YearTitle
2009A Self Portrait [1]
2013This is Not A Dream [1]
2012–2013BLACKOUT: Twilight of the Idols [1] [16] [17]
2013Lost in Trans [18] [2]
2014Camera Lucida [2]
2017–2023 [19] [20] [21] Re-Member Me [22] [23] [3] [24]
2019Botticelli in the Fire [25] [26] [11]
2020-2021Dick Whittington [27] [28] [29]
2022 The Tempest [8]
2022¡SHOWMANISM! [30] [31] [32] [33]
2024-25 The Invention of Love (Hampstead Theatre) [34]

Film performances

YearTitleRole
2018 Colette Georges Wague [4] [35] [25]
2018 Bohemian Rhapsody Kenny Everett [4] [35] [25]
2019Country of HotelsTalk Show Host [35]
2021The Real Charlie Chaplin Roddy McDowall [35] [17]

Awards

Personal life

Beau is openly gay, having known his sexual orientation from the age of around five or six. [4] Beau practises meditation. [4]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Arts Foundation | Beau, Dickie". The Arts Foundation. Archived from the original on December 1, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 O'Mahony, John (28 October 2014). "Camera Lucida: A truly spine-tingling experience". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 29, 2022.
  3. 1 2 Halliburton, Rachel. "Re-Member Me review — Dickie Beau's enthralling dissection of Hamlet". Archived from the original on June 15, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Brown, Steve (8 November 2019). "Actor Dickie Beau on sexuality, lipsyncing skills and starring in 'Bohemian Rhapsody'". attitude. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024.
  5. ↑ Green, Jesse (January 9, 2018). "In Solo Shows, Lip-Syncing 'Hamlet' and Investigating Homes Movies". Archived from the original on January 18, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Dickie Beau: Blackouts". qx Magazine. 11 November 2015. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 Bunbury, Stephanie (12 October 2018). "Queer Hamlet haunts a lip-synched seance in Dickie Beau's Re-Member Me". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on October 12, 2018.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "¡SHOWMANISM! At Bath Ustinov Studio". Stage Talk Magazine. 7 November 2022. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024.
  9. 1 2 "Read My Lips". TOTALTHEATRE. August 2022. Archived from the original on August 15, 2022.
  10. ↑ Run, Date (5 June 2015). "Dickie Beau: Blackouts: Twilight of the Idols". TOTALTHEATRE. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024.
  11. 1 2 Hawking, Frey. "Review: Botticelli in the Fire, Hampstead Theatre". Expunged Magazine. Archived from the original on December 2, 2021.
  12. ↑ Walters, Ben (2013-07-13). "Dickie Beau: in search of Marilyn Monroe's last words". Time Out London. Archived from the original on April 23, 2021. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  13. ↑ Davis, Clive. "¡Showmanism! Review — the art of acting brilliantly dissected". Archived from the original on February 18, 2023.
  14. ↑ Gardner, Lyn (20 March 2017). "Re-Member Me review – a seance of Hamlets from O'Toole to Day-Lewis". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 3, 2023.
  15. ↑ d'Cruz, Glenn (2019). "The Politics of (In)Decision" . Performance Research. 24 (8): 44–52. doi:10.1080/13528165.2019.1718430.
  16. ↑ "The Resurrection Game: How Dickie Beau Brought Marilyn and Judy Back To Life". This is Cabaret. Archived from the original on October 3, 2022.
  17. 1 2 Bennett, Sam. "Beau on Blackouts, Botticelli and Bohemian Rhapsody - from OX Magazine". Archived from the original on December 11, 2023.
  18. ↑ "The Double Negative » A Voice Heard by All: Dickie Beau, Lost in Trans". The Double Negative. Archived from the original on May 1, 2023.
  19. ↑ Cavendish, Dominic (31 May 2023). "Re-Member Me: A Hamlet fantasia of infinite jest – and stirring sorrow". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on November 28, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Theatre and performance groups". British Council. Archived from the original on November 28, 2023.
  21. ↑ Hawkins, Helwin (June 2023). "Re-Member Me, Hampstead Theatre review - wittily staged but poignant lip-syncing". theartsdesk.com. Archived from the original on September 30, 2023.
  22. ↑ "Re-Member Me, Hampstead Theatre review: Poignant performance piece about Hamlets past". TimeOut. 10 June 2023. Archived from the original on June 6, 2023.
  23. ↑ Milazzo, Franco. "Review: RE-MEMBER ME, Hampstead Theatre". broadway world. Archived from the original on September 25, 2023.
  24. ↑ Evans, Lloyd (7 June 2023). "Hamlet fans will love this: Re-Member Me, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed". The Spectator. Archived from the original on December 1, 2023.
  25. 1 2 3 "Dickie Beau interview - Bohemian Rhapsody, queer histories and Botticelli". qx Magazine. 17 October 2019. Archived from the original on October 20, 2019.
  26. ↑ Skethway, Nathan (October 24, 2019). "A Look at Hampstead Theatre's Botticelli in the Fire in London". Playbill. Archived from the original on August 1, 2021.
  27. ↑ Thompson, Jessie (12 January 2021). "Am I really going to watch a panto in January? Oh yes I am". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022.
  28. ↑ Akbar, Arifa (24 December 2020). "Dick Whittington review – smut, songs and a dose of optimism". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2022-05-12.
  29. ↑ Wiegand, Chris (16 December 2020). "National Theatre dashes to save Christmas spirit with Dick Whittington film". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 9, 2023.
  30. ↑ Cristi, A.A. (November 17, 2022). "Photos: First Look at Dickie Beau in ¡SHOWMANISM! At the Ustinov Studio in Bath". broadway world. Archived from the original on November 18, 2022.
  31. ↑ Blease, Melissa (28 November 2022). "Theatre Review: Showmanism". The Bath Magazine. Archived from the original on December 9, 2023.
  32. ↑ Jays, David (24 November 2022). "¡Showmanism! Review – astonishing lip-sync solo raises spirits". The Guardian. Archived from the original on February 13, 2024.
  33. ↑ Allfree, Claire (23 November 2022). "¡Showmanism!: A strange, beautiful study of the agony and ecstasy of performance". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022.
  34. ↑ Bano, Tim. The Invention of Love, Hampstead Theatre: Plotless, showily clever – and utterly wonderful. Independent, 17 December 2024. accessed 23 May 2025.
  35. 1 2 3 4 "Dickie Beau | Actor". IMDb . Archived from the original on December 10, 2022.
  36. ↑ "Just Like a Woman: NYC Edition Programme". Archived from the original on August 7, 2022.
  37. ↑ "The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award". Archived from the original on 2014-11-08.
  38. ↑ Bowie-Sell, Daisy (26 February 2017). "Winners of the Offies announced". WhatsOnStage. Archived from the original on November 21, 2023.
  39. ↑ Bank, Tim. "Orange Tree Theatre wins four awards in Offies' Twitter ceremony". The Stage. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023.
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