RUSSELL TOVEY - No.1312

SWEET CHARITY

KhanNaima: I am going to interview Russell Tovey today what should I ask him?

Tom_In_Oz_: @KhanNaima What is his favourite charity? He's never been asked that before and I have blogged him for over 2 years.

KhanNaima: @tom_in_oz_ Kudos. I'll take your word for it then.

Tom_In_Oz_: @KhanNaima Looking forward to hearing his response.

KhanNaima: @tom_in_oz_ He said the Albert Kennedy Trust

Tom_In_Oz_: @KhanNaima Thanks x

Stories Before Bedtime - Twisted Love: An interview with Russell Tovey

Russell Tovey talks about reading Ovid and giving it some chav in Stories Before Bedtime: Twisted Love at Criterion Theatre

This Friday, Russell Tovey, Sarah Solemani, Tom Hiddleston, and Niamh Cusack will perform a series of late-night readings from some of literature's most unlikely love stories in Stories Before Bedtime. Having only read his chosen extract from Ovid once, Russell Tovey talks about the stories most familiar to him.
Who read to you as a kid?
When I was a kid I read Where the Wild Things are and Tin Tin and my dad used to make up stories about a rabbit called Flopsy who had adventures. He totally improvised it but we recorded it. No idea where those tapes are now though.
What are you reading at the moment?
I love second-hand bookshops; if I find Ian McEwan in a second hand book shop I buy it. I've read Saturday and Amsterdam. I haven't read Enduring Lovebut I've bought the more obscure ones. One I got recently is called The Comfort of Strangers and it was, like, dark.
I love autobiographies too. The last one I read was by Ann-Margaret, the film star by an artist called Annie Kevans and I love that painting, I bought it and it made me want to know about her. I got curious about this person starring down at me. Oh and I've still got Boy George's one, Take It Like A Man, sat there to read.
I also want to read the book of the film Brad Pitt's just finished filming, World War Z by Max Brooks
What will you and Sarah Solemani be reading at Stories Before Bedtime?
Extracts from Ovid. I won't be too formal with it. There's an inclination when you're reading these word pieces to put on a theatrical RSC voice but I think I'm gonna give it a bit of chav. I'm doing it with Sarah, so it'll be a laugh. Now that the press night for Sex With A Stranger is over, I can give the text some more attention, it's beautiful. Stories Before Bedtime is going to be charming and funny. My co-stars from the show, Jaime [Winstone] and Naomi [Sheldon] will be there too (to watch).
Alongside Russell and Sarah, Tom Hiddleston will be reading from Tennessee William's the Kingdom of Earth and Niamh Cusack will read Angela Carter’s The Courtship of Mr Lyon.

Stories Before Bedtime: Twisted Love
Criteron Theatre
Friday 10th February 2012
10.30pm.
£12.50 (£10 concessions)

rosiedoes: @pitythebackseat Oh God. I feel weird about listening to Russell Tovey read porn.

KOREAN FANS

russelltovey: Having a fugly day x

88tickets: @russelltovey day???

russelltovey: RT @ReverieMagazine: @russelltovey You're like a character in an Enid Blyton book! Your tweets crack me up. Caramel Snack a Jacks and long johns. Love it.

russelltovey: @ReverieMagazine :-) x

fany6333: @russelltovey tovey!!!!!!!! do you know you have korean fans?

russelltovey: @fany6333 yes! You!! Thank you x

russelltovey: The power of twitter.. Look what just turned up at my agents office!! Heaven x 

NaomiSheldon1: @russelltovey I hope we'll be seeing those in the dressing room later. Yum Yum. X

mrmatcham: @russelltovey hey russell thanks for stopping at traf studios at weekend. Great to c u. Have a good run in the west end. Aaron xxx

russelltovey: RT @CriTheatre: Mr @russelltovey coming in shortly for @lecool_London photoshoot. He'll be dispensing Ovid's advice this Friday night. http://t.co/liAiDrtt

russelltovey: New 'Pirates' poster.. I'm the little Albino guy with a tankard of mead far right.. It's gonna be sooo cool x

I am ANGRY

Tom_In_Oz_: I left a message on the BBC Being Human blog No. 235 - see below for post or visit bbc.co.uk/blogs/beinghum…

MarkMMerrett: @Tom_In_Oz_ *claps* well said Tommy, your absolutely right and the show makes little sense now

SaranethBell: @Tom_In_Oz_ read your review. Can't say I totally disagree...but will give it another chance just because it was so good...can't all be lost

drunkkath: @Tom_In_Oz_ Just read your blog, well done mate :-) x

joooos1: @Tom_In_Oz_ hi Tom. I enjoyed reading your blog post. I enjoyed most of the ep (but, since when has werewolf blood been toxic to vamps??) & am glad you made a point about Sinead leaving. It still upsets me about the way she was treated & I wish more people realised xx

angloirishgal: @joooos1 hello! Not seen @Tom_in_Oz_ 's blog, not been on pc all day..headache. How was ur day?x

joooos1: @angloirishgal It's worth reading...lots of posts are, actually. Lots of opinions, which is good! Day OK thanks @tom_in_oz_

RealMitchell1: @Tom_In_Oz_ hey, Mr! Read your blog and agree wholeheartedly x Well said.

TOM IN OZ POST 235 – BBC 'BEING HUMAN' FORUM

7th Feb 2012

I am ANGRY and upset at the shambles the show has become!

I have no real reason to keep watching and it’s not really to do with Russell Tovey leaving. OK I may be going out on a limb but it's my chance to voice MY humble opinion. "Eve of the War" was patchy at best and doesn't rate well in the story arch created by the first 3 seasons. By the end of the show it was a shambles – like drawn threads tied neatly that were supposed to be clever - but left me emotionally disconnected and I don't think there was any light to balance the dark. The Mr Weasly soothsayer guy just didn’t work on any level for me...and neither did the whimpy vampire who got the campervan as a mystery prize and left!

If you watch the last episode of season three with first episode of season four the average person would be slashing their wrists….like I said at start I am ANGRY…this could have been better…the so called trap for George & Tom just didn’t make sense…basically if George sat in his room and wallowed in more grief by the end of the episode they would be alive …the dialogue just wasn’t convincing for George to trust Tom to go to the warehouse…

Basically if the character Annie had done her job none of this mess would have happened… when you think about it…she is responsible for all the others dying! And what was odd, was that when Annie told George his daughter was gone, George didn't even get slightly mad at her...the script writing was fraying at the seams compared to other season!

Russell's acting was pretty much the only good thing about the episode and though it was meant to be heart wrenching I didn't shed one tear!

There were so many plot points that didn't make sense...even the lack of Jewish stuff around Eve's crib surely George didn't become a Christian just for one ep!...

Did you notice there we no George moments where he had flashbacks to Nina - not a one! So it's pretty obvious why Sinead left the production...and there is no farewell Sinead vid or mention of one being made but Turner and Tovey got one! I suppose 3 years of having been in the cast and virtually ignored by BBC must have gotten Sinead Keenan down at times!

My ramblings here are cobbled too…like the threads that didn’t make sense in the show…but at least it might make some of you think more deeply about some of the behind the scenes goings-on in the show…

Tom in Oz (on a limb)

russelltovey: Long Johns in bed x

MarkMMerrett: @russelltovey u can take me to bed I would keep you warm ;-)

thejonboyce: @russelltovey Been in long johns all day, ah the freedom now they are off! That's essential wear when working outside in -7 degrees x

edwardclarke: @russelltovey will be a chilly night!

russelltovey: RT @H_Woolfenden: ROAR short film I worked on starring the talented @russelltovey see it on russell-tovey.blogspot.com

Sex With a Stranger – review

Plays about casual sex among today's twentysomethings are not that uncommon. But two things give this cryptic, 80-minute three-hander by Stefan Golaszewski (writer of BBC3's Him and Her) an edge over its rivals: its air of quiet melancholy and its unusual empathy with the play's insecure female victim.

The structure is also unorthodox. First we see Adam and Grace, after a night's clubbing, gradually weaving their way via the bus stop and a kebab shop towards her bed. But these snapshots of a brief, sexual encounter are interspersed with glimpses of Adam's partner, Ruth, and in the second half the play focuses on the couple's frayed relationship and the uneasy prelude to Adam's big night out. And, while the play may offer no great revelations, the dialogue is fresh and sharp, and the sadness palpable. Two images in Philip Breen's atmospheric production stand out: one is of Ruth, like a latter-day Alison from Look Back in Anger, meticulously ironing her partner's shirt, and the other is of Adam lugubriously listening to the musical Ruth performing a violin solo.

Two hot young actors give the piece a bit of glam. Russell Tovey as the guiltily treacherous Adam and Jaime Winstone as the giggling, nervous Grace are both very good. But it is Naomi Sheldon as Ruth who really captures the attention: she conveys all the anxiety, fear and loneliness of a woman who instinctively knows, from Adam's feeble stories about going out drinking with the lads, that she is about to be betrayed. All one can say is that Golaszewski, for a male dramatist, shows a rare understanding of female distress.

 First Night Feature:Sex With A Stranger

First published: 07 Feb 2012

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner but, at last night’s opening of Stefan Golaszewski’s Sex With A Stranger, romance certainly wasn’t in the air. In fact, for Russell Tovey’s character Adam, the mere act of buying his girlfriend a packet of pre-chopped lettuce to save her time when preparing his lunch was as romantic as it got.

Sex With A Stranger focuses on Adam and his far from passionate relationships with two girls: his girlfriend Ruth (Naomi Sheldon) and his newly acquired one night stand Grace (Jaime Winstone) who he meets on a night out. The play opens as Adam and Grace wait for a night bus to take them back to her house. While Adam swigs from his bottle of Lucozade, their conversation is littered with awkward silences and half-hearted compliments with neither party really interested in what the other has to say.

It isn’t until the two clubbers are back at the house that we are introduced to Adam’s real girlfriend Ruth, who has been pushed to the back of his mind for the night. After an uncomfortable discussion about condoms, there is a shift back in time to earlier in the evening when Ruth is loyally ironing the crumpled shirt which is soon to be ripped off her boyfriend’s back in his debauched drunken encounter. In several minutes of gloomy silence, she continues to iron, the rapidly emanating steam reflecting the lack of steaminess in her own bedroom. Shirt ironed, boyfriend dressed, she comments on his uncharacteristic facial hair, agreeing that “it’s good to have a change”. Little does she know how her boyfriend is going to manifest his own need for a change later in the evening.

In the play’s shifting time sequence, hilarious moments of drunken tomfoolery are interspersed with periods of glum monotony, as Ruth irons, vacuums and cooks her way through the play. A flash forward to the future sees Grace on her wedding day describing herself as “warm with the glow of ever-lasting love”, a stark contrast to the fumbled and detached affair of her night with the unfaithful Adam.

This frank three-hander is staged in a venue so intimate that each member of the small audience feels, somewhat awkwardly, like part of the production - although the graphic kissing is so loud it could probably be heard by the whole city - yet the play itself is void of intimacy entirely.

Void of intimacy it may be but void of hilarity it is not. Tovey provokes constant laughter with his “cool” response to every question and Winstone adds humour to everyday occurrences such as gargling mouthwash and rifling through her handbag in search of her Oyster card. Even the unfortunate Ruth is a comic character, with her obsession for household chores and irate behaviour in a supermarket queue.

It may not be your typical choice of entertainment around Valentine’s Day but Sex With A Stranger, with its comedy, frankness and numerous plates of food, is definitely worth trying.