The Box Play is Mike Leigh's first stage play and was developed using the process of improvisation and collaboration with his cast that was to become the hallmark of Leigh's later work. [1] It received its premier at the Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham in 1965. [2]
Vivien Leigh, styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963). Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Katrin Juliet Cartlidge was an English actress. She first appeared on screen as Lucy Collins in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside (1982–1983), before going on to win the 1997 Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actress for the Mike Leigh film Career Girls. Her other film appearances included Leigh's Naked (1993), Before the Rain (1994), Breaking the Waves (1996) and From Hell (2001).
Jim Broadbent is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film Iris (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for his leading role as Lord Longford in the television film Longford (2006). Broadbent received four BAFTA Film Award nominations and won for his performance in Moulin Rouge! (2001). He was also nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American actress, writer, and producer. She began her career on television during the 1970s before making her film breakthrough as Stacy Hamilton in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). She later received critical praise for her performances in Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Miami Blues (1990), Backdraft (1991), Single White Female (1992), and Short Cuts (1993).
Abigail's Party is a play for stage and television, devised and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s. The play developed in lengthy improvisations during which Mike Leigh explored the characters with the actors, but did not always reveal the incidents that would occur during the play. The production opened in April 1977 at the Hampstead Theatre, and returned after its initial run in the summer of 1977, for 104 performances in all. A recording was arranged at the BBC as a Play for Today, produced by Margaret Matheson for BBC Scotland and transmitted in November 1977.
Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s, before transitioning to making televised plays and films for BBC Television in the 1970s and '80s. Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."
Mitch Leigh was an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man of La Mancha.
Topsy-Turvy is a 1999 British musical period drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan and Jim Broadbent as W.S. Gilbert, along with Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville and Ron Cook. The story concerns the 15-month period in 1884 and 1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The film focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and their decision to continue their partnership, which led to their creation of several more Savoy operas.
Vera Drake is a 2004 British period drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh and starring Imelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Daniel Mays and Eddie Marsan. It tells the story of a working-class woman in London in 1950 who performs illegal abortions. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and it was nominated for three Academy Awards and won three BAFTAs.
Alison Steadman is an English actress. She received the 1991 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for the Mike Leigh film Life Is Sweet and the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Mari in the original production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. In a 2007 Channel 4 poll, the ‘50 Greatest Actors’ voted for by other actors, she was ranked 42.
The Tree of Wooden Clogs is a 1978 Italian film written and directed by Ermanno Olmi. The film concerns Lombard peasant life in a cascina (farmhouse) of the late 19th century. It has some similarities with the earlier Italian neorealist movement, in that it focuses on the lives of the poor, and the parts were played by real farmers and locals, rather than professional actors.
Lesley Ann Manville is an English actress known for her frequent collaborations with Mike Leigh, appearing in the films Grown-Ups (1980), High Hopes (1988), Secrets & Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Another Year (2010), and Mr. Turner (2014). She has been nominated for two British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Another Year (2010) and Phantom Thread (2017); with the latter earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Leigh Torrence is a former American football cornerback who is now an assistant coach for the New York Jets. He was signed by the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent in 2005. He played college football at Stanford.
The Kiss of Death is a 1977 BBC Play for Today.
Marion Bailey is an English actress. She is best known for her work with her partner, filmmaker Mike Leigh, including the films Meantime (1983), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Mr. Turner (2014), for which she was nominated Supporting Actress of the Year by the London Film Critics' Circle, and Peterloo (2018). In 2019 and 2020, she portrayed Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown on Netflix, for which she was a Screen Actors Guild award winner for best ensemble in 2020 and 2021.
Ruth Sheen is an English actress. From the late 1980s, she has appeared in British television shows, films and plays. A participant in the films of Mike Leigh, she won the European Film Award for Best Actress for her performance as Shirley in Leigh's High Hopes (1988).
The Blind Side is a 2009 American biographical sports drama film written and directed by John Lee Hancock. Based on the 2006 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, the film tells the story of Michael Oher, an American football offensive lineman who overcame an impoverished upbringing to play in the National Football League (NFL) with the help of his adoptive parents Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. It stars Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy, and Quinton Aaron as Oher.
David William Halliwell was a British dramatist.
Bleak Moments is a 1971 British comedy-drama film by Mike Leigh in his directorial debut. Leigh's screenplay is based on a 1970 stage play at the Open Space Theatre, about the dysfunctional life of a young secretary.
Hard Labour is a 1973 television film, directed by Mike Leigh and produced by Tony Garnett which was broadcast as part of the BBC anthology series Play for Today. The film stars Liz Smith in her first major role. The film is the most clearly drawn in all Leigh's work from the background in Higher and Lower Broughton where he grew up. "Though elements of autobiography are buried in all Leigh's films and plays, only Hard Labour is set in Salford, – the scenes in the Stones' house were shot in a house just two doors along from where the Leighs had lived in Cavendish Road."