Pam Gems dies, aged 85

Award-winning British playwright Pam Gems has died, aged 85.

A pioneering and passionate playwright, Pam Gems became best known for her biographical plays about strong women. Her most famous play is Piaf, written for the RSC in 1978 and recently revived by Jamie Lloyd at the Donmar Warehouse starring Elena Roger.

Born in Bransgore, Hampshire, Gems studied at Manchester University before marrying and having four children. Despite writing plays from the age of eight, she did not write her first performed plays until her Forties.

Her work includes a long association with the RSC, from Queen Christina (1977) and Piaf (1978) to Camille (1984), The Danton Affair (1986) and The Blue Angel (1991). Her early plays include Go West, Young Woman for the Women’s Company at the Roundhouse (1974), Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi (1976), and later plays Pasionaria (1985), Stanley at the National Theatre starring Antony Sher (1996), Marlene (1996) and Mrs Pat, about actor Mrs Patrick Campbell (2006).

Gems was working well into her Eighties, including making a number of changes to Piaf for Jamie Lloyd’s Donmar production, accommodating Elena Roger’s Argentinian accent in a play that she originally wrote for a Cockney-voiced Piaf.

Her continued passion and commitment to theatre was admired by all who met her or saw her work. In an interveiw in the Telegraph with Dominic Cavendish in 2006 she said: “”Olivier said that drama is an affair of the heart, or it’s nothing, and he was right. Most people spend their days doing things they’d rather not do, so when they come to the theatre they want to be surprised, preferably be made to laugh, and certainly to forget themselves.”

Iris Pamela (‘Pam’) Gems. 1925 to 2011.

LINKS

Theatre Voice: Radio interview with Pam Gems (2006)

Caroline O’Connor – Ticket Offer Save £10

Uber-talented stage star Caroline O’Connor is back in London with a smash-hit show

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £10 on tickets to Caroline O’Connor The Showgirl Within at the Garrick Theatre

Offer valid all performances from 27th September until 3rd October

The international award-winning musicals star Caroline O’Connor is back in London with a new one-woman show following sell-out seasons in New York and Sydney.

Caroline O’Connor: The Showgirl Within is playing for a strictly limited season at the Garrick Theatre in London, from 27 September to 3 October 2010. This fabulous show celebrates Caroline’s amazing acting, singing and dancing career on stage and screen. She will be joined by an exhilarating ensemble of dancers and her own band, in her first ever musical solo show in the West End.

The show will feature standout musical theatre anthems that have shaped her incredible career including roles in hit movies Moulin Rouge and De-Lovely, and stage roles ranging from Piaf and Judy Garland, to both Roxie and Velma in Chicago, Anita in West Side Story and Mabel in Mack & Mabel.

Caroline O’Connor is one of very few actresses to have been nominated for both the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Mack & Mabel and the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play for Bombshells.

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £10 on tickets to Caroline O’Connor The Showgirl Within at the Garrick Theatre

Offer valid all performances from 27th September until 3rd October

ELENA ROGER in Passion

Argentinean actress continues to forge acclaimed career

By the time 2012 is out, Elena Roger is going to be considerably more famous than she is now.

That’s because Michael Grandage’s 2006 production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita is to be revived on Broadway in Spring 2012 starring Roger as Eva Peron, and joined by Latino superstar Ricky Martin as Che.

The Argentinean actress won an Olivier award for her role in the show – and if the reaction to her London performance in that role is anything to go by, America is going to fall in love with her.

She followed Evita in London with a 2009 Olivier Award win for her performance as Edith Piaf  in the Jamie Lloyd directed Piaf at the Donmar Warehouse and in the West End.

And she is about to return to the Donmar to star in a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion alongside Scarlett Strallen and David Thaxton, again directed by Jamie Lloyd.

The show is part of the Donmar’s celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday, that will also include concert performances of Merrily We Roll Along and Company at the Queen’s Theatre, featuring members of the original Donmar productions including Anna Francolini, Adrian Lester, Clive Rowe, Michael Simkins and Sophie Thompson in Company and Daniel Evans, Julian Ovenden and Samantha Spiro in Merrily We Roll Along.

Elena Roger’s other credits include Matthew Warchus’s Boeing Boeing, and in her native Buenos Aires she played Nine, Beauty and the Beast, Les Misérables, Saturday Night Fever and Mina, che cosa sei, with director Valeria Ambrosio.

Links:

News: West End Evita to transfer to Broadway

Donmar Warehouse

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Actress Winners

OLIVIER AWARDS – BEST ACTRESS WINNERS

Best Actress

2011 Nancy Carroll for After the Dance
2010 Rachel Weisz for A Streetcar Named Desire
2009 Margaret Tyzack for The Chalk Garden
2008 Kristin Scott Thomas for Chekhov’s The Seagull
2007 Tamsin Greig for Much Ado About Nothing
2006 Eve Best for Hedda Gabler
2005 Clare Higgins for Hecuba
2004 Eileen Atkins for Honour
2003 Clare Higgins for Vincent In Brixton
2002 Lindsay Duncan for Private Lives
2001 Julie Walters for All My Sons
2000 Janie Dee for Comic Potential
1999 Eileen Atkins for The Unexpected Man
1998 Zoë Wanamaker for Electra
1997 Janet McTeer for A Doll’s House
1996 Judi Dench for Absolute Hell
1995 Clare Higgins for Sweet Bird Of Youth
1994 Fiona Shaw for Machinal
1993 Alison Steadman for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
1992 Juliet Stevenson for Death And The Maiden
1991 Kathryn Hunter for The Visit
1989/90 Fiona Shaw for Electra, As You Like It and The Good Person Of Sichuan
1987 Judi Dench for Antony and Cleopatra
1986 Lindsay Duncan for Les Liaisons Dangereuses
1985 Yvonne Bryceland for The Road To Mecca

Actress of the Year in a New Play

1988 Pauline Collins for Shirley Valentine
1984 Thuli Dumakude for Poppie Nongena
1983 Judi Dench for Pack Of Lies
1982 Rosemary Leach for 84 Charing Cross Road
1981 Elizabeth Quinn for Children Of A Lesser God
1980 Frances de la Tour for Duet For One
1979 Jane Lapotaire for Piaf
1978 Joan Plowright for Filumena
1977 Alison Fiske for Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi
1976 Peggy Ashcroft for Old World

Actress of the Year in a Revival

1988 Harriet Walter for Twelfth Night and The Three Sisters
1984 Vanessa Redgrave for The Aspern Papers
1983 Frances de la Tour for A Moon For The Misbegotten
1982 Cheryl Campbell for A Doll’s House
1981 Margaret Tyzack for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
1980 Judi Dench for Juno And The Paycock
1979 Zoë Wanamaker for Once In A Lifetime
1978 Dorothy Tutin for The Double Dealer
1977 Judi Dench for Macbeth
1976 Dorothy Tutin for A Month In The Country

Best Actress in a Musical

2011 Sheridan Smith for Legally Blonde – The Musical
2010 Samantha Spiro for Hello Dolly!
2009 Elena Roger for Piaf
2008 Leanne Jones for Hairspray
2007 Jenna Russell for Sunday In The Park With George
2006 Jane Krakowski for Guys And Dolls
2005 Laura Michelle Kelly for Mary Poppins
2004 Maria Friedman for Ragtime at the Piccadilly
2003 Joanna Riding for My Fair Lady
2002 Martine McCutcheon for My Fair Lady
2001 Samantha Spiro for Merrily We Roll Along
2000 Barbara Dickson for Spend Spend Spend
1999 Sophie Thompson for Into The Woods
1998 Ute Lemper for Chicago
1997 Maria Friedman for Passion
1996 Judi Dench for A Little Night Music
1995 Ruthie Henshall for She Loves Me
1994 Julia McKenzie for Sweeney Todd
1993 Joanna Riding for Carousel
1992 Wilhelmenia Fernandez for Carmen Jones
1991 Imelda Staunton for Into The Woods
1989/90 Lea Salonga for Miss Saigon
1988 Patricia Routledge for Candide
1987 Nichola McAuliffe for Kiss Me Kate
1986 Lesley Mackie for Judy
1985 Patti LuPone for Les Misérables and The Cradle Will Rock
1984 Natalia Makarova for On Your Toes
1983 Barbara Dickson for Blood Brothers
1982 Julia McKenzie for Guys And Dolls
1981 Carlin Glynn for The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas
1980 Gemma Craven for They’re Playing Our Song
1979 Virginia McKenna for The King And I

Piaf Review

I was really looking forward to seeing this sold-out show – and for the most part I wasn’t disappointed. But I didn’t leave the Donmar feeling as elated as I thought I would.

It’s no fault of this production that it has to follow the superb film La Vie En Rose, which kind of renders Pam Gems’ play slightly redundant. And Elena Roger has the physical presence (her slight build perfect for Piaf) and awe-inspiring voice to carry it off. But it was often hard to understand her heavy Argentinean accent, and this, combined with nearly 50% of the show consisting of Piaf’s wonderful songs sung in French, leaves a slim percentage of the production in English.

I know I risk sounding like a luddite for voicing my opinion about the songs being sung in French, but another joy of the film was being able to appreciate the subtitled lyrics.

Overall I love Elena – and long may she remain in London to take on equally challenging parts – but Gems’ patchy play, and a slightly muddled production, left me a little disappointed.

BOOK PIAF NOW.

Save up to Half Price on London theatre.

Books MUSICALS in the West End.