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This fascinating text offers the first in-depth exploration of acting processes in British television. Focused around sixteen new interviews with celebrated British actors, including Rebecca Front, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Ken...
This fascinating text offers the first in-depth exploration of acting processes in British television. Focused around sixteen new interviews with celebrated British actors, including Rebecca Front, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Ken Stott, Penelope Wilton and John Hannah, this rich resource delves behind the scenes of a range of British television programmes in order to find out how actors build their characters for television, how they work on set and location, and how they create their critically acclaimed portrayals. The book looks at actors’ work across four diverse but popular genres: soap opera; police and medical drama; comedy; and period drama.
Its insightful discussion of hit programmes and its critical and contextual post-interview analysis, makes the text an essential read for students across Television and Film Studies, Theatre, Performance and Acting, and Cultural and Media Studies, as well as academics and anyone interested in acting and British television.
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Features new interview material with some of Britain's most revered actors, including Julie Hesmondhalgh, John Hannah, Ken Stott, Jason Watkins, Rebecca Front, Penelope Wilton
Goes 'behind the scenes' of Downton Abbey, Poldark, The Thick of It, Rebus, Coronation Street and Holby City to explore how actors work on these hit programmes
Explores acting process rather than just the final performance we see on our screens, so that readers gain insights into the hidden side of acting - how the actors develop their celebrated portrayals
Written by two established academic authors within the fields of theatre, performance and television studies
1. General Introduction 2. Soap Opera 3. Police and Medical Drama 4. Comedy 5. Period Drama 6. General Conclusion
At the core of this book are the testimonies of actors themselves, rendered as lightly edited transcripts of semi-structured interviews. Each chapter focuses on a specific genre and features interviews with established actors from some of the most critically regarded and popular of contemporary UK drama series. – Stephen Lacey, University of South Wales, UK
Tom Cantrell is Senior Lecturer and Head of Theatre at the University of York, UK. He has published widely on screen and stage acting, including Playing for Real: Actors on Playing Real People (Palgrave, 2010, co-edited with Mary Luckhurst) and Acting in Documentary Theatre (Palgrave, 2013).
Christopher Hogg is Senior Lecturer in Television Theory at the University of Westminster, UK. His research interests lie primarily in British television drama but he has also published work in such areas as television adaptation and translation, and screen representations of the past.
Tom Cantrell is Senior Lecturer and Head of Theatre at the University of York, UK. He has published widely on screen and stage acting, including Playing for Real: Actors on Playing Real People (Palgrave, 2010, co-edited with Mary Luckhurst) and Acting in Documentary Theatre (Palgrave, 2013).
Christopher Hogg is Senior Lecturer in Television Theory at the University of Westminster, UK. His research interests lie primarily in British television drama but he has also published work in such areas as television adaptation and translation, and screen representations of the past.
