This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Roy Smiles | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 (age 63–64) London, England |
Occupation(s) | Dramatist, playwright, songwriter |
Years active | 1987–present |
Website | https://roysmiles.bandcamp.com |
Roy Smiles (born 1960) is a singer-songwriter & playwright from Ealing, London. He is also an occasional actor.
Smiles has written 27 theatre plays, the best known of which is Kurt and Sid , a 2009 London West End production about the fictional meeting of Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain, starring Danny Dyer & Shaun Evans. [1]
He has released ten albums of songs: [2] Drunks & Dreamers, [3] Time's Moving On, [4] Seize The Day, [5] Autumn Song, [6] Bremen, [7] The Trains & The Rain, [8] Northern Angels, [9] Lost Souls, [10] [11] November's Child, [12] [13] and Tales Of The Oceans. [14] [15]
He has also released ten compilations of his songs: London Hymns, [16] Winter's Child, [17] Clancy's Song, [18] If Summer Comes, [19] Ballads Of The Thames, [20] Child Of Two Rivers, [21] Go Gently (Best Of), [22] A Land Called Home (Best Of II), [23] Forty Big Hits [24] and 40 More Big Hits. [25]
His first play staged in 1992 at the Battersea Arts Centre, Schmucks [26] was about a fictitious meeting between Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce.
The Promised Land, a play commissioned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of V.E Night and set on the same night, was staged at the Kings Head Theatre in 1995. [27]
Smiles' stage plays focus largely on biographical subjects such as Albert Camus (The Weight Of Days), Evelyn Waugh (Waugh In Winter), Marilyn Monroe/Arthur Miller (Reno), [28] George Orwell (Year of the Rat), [29] Tony Hancock (The Lad Himself) [30] & Robert F. Kennedy (The Last Pilgrim). [31]
A number of his plays have debuted or transferred to theatres around the world, such as Pythonesque, [32] the story of the Monty Python team, which opened in South Africa in 2008 before moving to Edinburgh as part of the Fringe Festival in 2009. [33]
The Boys Of Summer - his play set in a HIV ward was staged at the Old Red Lion in 1995, with Ian Bartholomew. [34]
Stand Up - his play about the London stand-up comedy scene was staged at the Old Red Lion in 1999, with Lucy Davies. It was revived at The Kings Head Theatre in 2006 under the title The Ho-Ho Club directed by Karl Howman and starring Sally Lindsay. [35] [36]
Bombing People - a farce about the Enola Gay, was staged at the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2000, with Michael Fitzgerald. [37]
Sick Dictators - a farce about Chilean dictator General Pinochet, was staged at the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2001, directed by James Bolam. [38]
In 2002 he played the role of Itzak Heller, a Jewish collaborator, in Roman Polanski's Oscar winning Best Picture The Pianist. [39]
Ying Tong - A Walk with the Goons, the story of Spike Milligan's nervous breakdown whilst writing The Goon Show, was staged at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2004, transferring the following year to the New Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End before touring the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. [40] [41]
Year Of The Rat - his play about George Orwell's attempt to woo wife-to-be Sonia Brownell whilst writing 1984 was staged at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2007, with Hugo Speer as Orwell. [42]
Good Evening - about the Beyond The Fringe team was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2008, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dudley Moore. [43]
The Last Pilgrim - about Senator Robert F. Kennedy's doomed campaign for the American Presidency was staged in London in 2010. [44]
The Lad Himself - his play about self loathing radio & TV comedian Tony Hancock was staged at the Edinburgh Festival in 2013. [45]
Memories Of A Cad - his radio play about actor Terry-Thomas dealing with Parkinson's Disease was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2014, with Martin Jarvis as Terry-Thomas & Alistair McGowen as Richard Briers. [46]
Reno - his play about Marilyn Monroe & Arthur Miller's marriage imploding during the making of The Misfits had its world premiere at the Brighton Festival in 2014. [47]
Plum - his play about writer PG Wodehouse's infamous broadcasts from Berlin in WW2 was staged at The Court Theatre in Christchurch in 2014. [48]
Year of the Rat, [49] Ying Tong , Pythonesque and Kurt & Sid are published by Oberon Books. [50]
Funny People, his book on his comedy heroes, was published by Oberon Books in 2016. [51]
Ten Plays by Roy Smiles was published by Oberon Books in 2018. Containing his plays on Albert Camus, Richard Burton, Oscar Wilde/George Bernard Shaw, Evelyn Waugh, Tony Hancock, Lenny Bruce, the Enola Gay, the Iraq War, Marilyn Monroe/Arthur Miller & the 2011 London Riots. [52]
Ying Tong, Pythonesque and Good Evening were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As were his plays: Dear Arthur Love John, [53] Goodnight From Him [54] and Memories Of A Cad. [55]
The Funny Girls - his play about Barbra Streisand & Joan Rivers rivalry/friendship, was first staged at The Wimbledon Theatre in September 2021. [56] [57]
A Sober October - his biographical memoir on surviving bowel cancer, was published on Amazon Books in 2022. [58]
The Lad Himself - his play about Tony Hancock, had its London premiere at Upstairs At The Gate in Highgate in April 2022. [59]
Forty two of his plays are self-published on Amazon Books. [60]
The Lyrics - his book of the lyrics of his one hundred & forty songs, was published on Amazon Books in November 2023. [61]
40 Big Hits (Volume III) - was released on Spotify in August 2024. [62]
His music sites passed the target of 500,000 listens as of September 2024.
Ghosts Of London, a 3 track EP, was released in October 2024. [63]
|
|
Funny Girl is a musical with score by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, and book by Isobel Lennart, that first opened on Broadway in 1964. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of comedian and Broadway star Fanny Brice, featuring her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein.
Roy Hudd, OBE was an English comedian, actor, presenter, radio host, author and authority on the history of music hall entertainment.
Nathan Lane is an American actor. Since 1975, he has been on stage and screen in both comedic and dramatic roles. His awards include three Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Lane received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2010, The New York Times hailed Lane as being "the greatest stage entertainer of the decade".
James Christopher Bolam is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Terry Collier in The Likely Lads and its sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Jack Ford in When the Boat Comes In, Roy Figgis in Only When I Laugh, Trevor Chaplin in The Beiderbecke Trilogy, Arthur Gilder in Born and Bred, Jack Halford in New Tricks and the title character of Grandpa in the CBeebies programme Grandpa in My Pocket.
Sutton Lenore Foster is an American actress. She is known for her work on the Broadway stage, for which she has won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice, in 2002 for her role as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, and in 2011 for her performance as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, a role which she reprised in 2021 for a production in London and for which she received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Her other Broadway credits include Grease, Little Women, The Drowsy Chaperone, Young Frankenstein, Shrek the Musical, Violet, The Music Man, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Once Upon a Mattress. On television, Foster played the lead role in the short-lived ABC Family comedy-drama Bunheads from 2012 to 2013. From 2015 to 2021, she starred in the TV Land comedy-drama Younger.
Jermyn Street Theatre is a performance venue situated on Jermyn Street, in London's West End. It is an Off West End studio theatre.
Tanya Christine Franks is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Rainie Cross in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders.
Roy Samuel Williams is a British playwright.
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at the junction of Denman Street and Sherwood Street, near Piccadilly Circus, in the City of Westminster, London. It opened in 1928.
James Frederick Grenville Lance is an English actor, best known for his appearances in a number of British comedy series and the British-American comedy series Ted Lasso, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2022.
Matt Roper is a British comedian, writer and musician.
Sara Patricia Pascoe is an English actress, comedian, presenter and writer. She has appeared on television programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Taskmaster for Channel 4 and QI for BBC Two.
Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary are a London-based musical theatre writing partnership. They met at Bristol University, where they were studying Drama and Music respectively.
Barking in Essex is a black comedy directed by Harry Burton. It is based on the 2005 script by Clive Exton, and made its world premiere at the Wyndham's Theatre in September 2013.
Susan Indiaba Wokoma is a British actress, writer and director. She is best known for her roles as Edith in the Enola Holmes films, Cynthia in Chewing Gum, Raquel in the E4/Netflix show Crazyhead and Fola in Cheaters. Wokoma was listed as one of Europe's Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 and named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit by an international jury the same year.
Anuvab Pal is an Indian stand up comedian, screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He is occasionally featured as a rotating co-host on Season 4 of the podcast The Bugle.
Diane F. Botcher is a Welsh actress. She has starred in several British television sitcoms and dramas, including the Sky comedy drama Stella, BBC comedies Little Britain and Tittybangbang and the ITV period drama Downton Abbey. In 2018, she joined Casualty as Jan Jenning.
James Atherton is an English actor, known for his roles as Will Savage on Hollyoaks and Jamie Bowman on Coronation Street. In 2017, he appeared in the stage production of Rita, Sue and Bob Too. In 2019, he played Tim Collins in Ackley Bridge and Dr. McKenzie in the Dave sitcom Porters.
Robin Hawdon is an English playwright and novelist, with previous additional careers as actor and theatre director. He is best known for his stage comedies and novels.
Ali Brice is a UK-based alternative comedian, character comedian and actor who regularly performs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He has toured internationally as a stage actor and regularly features in high-profile television commercials.
{{cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (help){{cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (help){{cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (help)