Dickie Beau

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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]
2022The Tempest [8]
2022¡SHOWMANISM! [30] [31] [32] [33]

Film performances

YearTitleRole
2018 Colette Georges Wague [4] [34] [25]
2018 Bohemian Rhapsody Kenny Everett [4] [34] [25]
2019Country of HotelsTalk Show Host [34]
2021The Real Charlie Chaplin Roddy McDowall [34] [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.
  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. 1 2 3 4 "Dickie Beau | Actor". IMDb . Archived from the original on December 10, 2022.
  35. "Just Like a Woman: NYC Edition Programme". Archived from the original on August 7, 2022.
  36. "The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award". Archived from the original on 2014-11-08.
  37. Bowie-Sell, Daisy (26 February 2017). "Winners of the Offies announced". WhatsOnStage. Archived from the original on November 21, 2023.
  38. 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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