The Fan A to Z – #F

/ June 24, 2018

Hello, hello! How quickly ten days fly by when you are having fun. I am back from Spain – a little more tanned, and way more relaxed, despite a bit of work while there.

We returned on a true red-eye flight on Thursday night and have a few more days until we head on to Berlin at the end of this coming week. Meh, I am definitely working this week… On the upside, that means I will be at the computer more, and have time to catch up on all sorts of things.

Such as the Fan Challenge, woefully behind at F… What the…????

F – Name a play that you wish RA would do.

Tough question. I’ve seen lots of plays in the past few years that I really liked, and I often also thought “Richard would’ve been *great* in this.” Labour of Love comes to mind. Or better still, Don Juan in Soho, although the latter was so perfectly embodied by David Tennant, I really had no complaints there. So who, or what? Shakespeare seems to be considered the ultimate ennoblement for actors, and yet – his plays have been done so often, there have been too many “definitive” and “seminal” versions of the plays; I’d rather like to see RA in something else. Both plays I have seen him in, were “conventional” – and I don’t mean that as a qualitative statement. They were classically staged plays (even though TC was played in the round, which was unusual and extremely fitting for the play; and LLL had an interesting progression through several decades.) But I would love to see him in something totally left-field, something experimental even, without structure, without props and backdrops and sets, something that really challenges the audience, something radical and different that redefines theatre and that makes waves. Something like Peter Handke’s Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending the Audience) comes to mind. I just got absorbed into watching half an hour of that play on YT – fantastic, the 1960s really were a great time for theatre! Or the Theatre of the Absurd (Beckett, Pinter).

Ok, but to actually name a play, here’s this: I would love to see a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s plays. I saw GBS’s Major Barbara five years ago in Dublin – not necessarily his best play, but I quite enjoy the morality tone of the piece. He has gone out of fashion, though, which is a pity as he is an extremely interesting playwright and author, quite ahead of his time in many ways. And a Nobel laureate, whose legacy is unfortunately overshadowed and watered down by Pygmalion (turned into My Fair Lady). My wish would be for Man and Superman – an unfortunate choice in the sense that it has been done relatively recently (2015) in London with the always excellent Ralph Fiennes as the main character, Jack Tanner, a confirmed, rich bachelor, who is chosen as guardian for a young woman who decides she wants to marry and tame the cad. There is also a discussion between Don Juan (also played by the actor who plays Tanner) and the devil himself in the play, which provides an interesting challenge in the role – more scope for RA to show his abilities.

But good fan that I am, I will be happy with anything – although RA in a GBS revival on his Dublin home turf would be a dream come true!

What would you like to see RA in?

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46 thoughts on “The Fan A to Z – #F”

  1. Ode to a Fantasy Play

    I’ve never been a playwright,
    Not for a single day.
    But I could be inspired,
    By one I desired –
    RA starring on Broadway.
    We’d collaborate day and night,
    To make sure scenes were exactly right.
    I’d rewrite lines per his request,
    Throwing in scenes with his pretty bare chest.
    He’d win the Tony for his brilliant work,
    Driving stage door fans berserk.
    And this beautiful British mister,
    Would become a big A lister.
    But I haven’t got a clue,
    If he wants to.
    Do you?

    Kathy Jones

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        • It’s a fickle business. If anything, I would’ve thought that The Hobbit would’ve propelled him to stardom… that didn’t happen. Maybe that is exactly what RA wants…

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          • I thought so too. His big break. Umm, not so much. Maybe it was the dwarf thing, a wig thing, or just not looking enough like his handsome self. Maybe his timing is off and he is committed to smaller projects when the bigger ones come along. So many possibilities, so many things we will never know.

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      • I would imagine that his striving for A lister status has got to be a conundrum of sorts–pinnacle of success to be able to then produce or do Indie projects or plays or whatever floats his boat but a negative for all the attention reigning down on his every move, sighting, date, friendships. Ugh that would be incredibly stressful on anyone let alone someone who wants to “blend in with the crowd.”

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  2. Great poem Kathy!
    I haven’t even made a start on this challenge yet Guylty so you’re way ahead of me. I’ve got the new laptop up and running now, so have access to all my pics and gifs, but having a semi-retired hubby home full time at the moment, and using that laptop to prepare for his next work project is seriously putting the brakes on my Richarding. 🙄🙁 He needs his own computer!

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          • LOL – I am just imagining that now… Guy, attending the annual opening of the envelope in Nottingham Castle. Vaisey: “Come on, Gizzy, push me that envelope!” Guy: “Sorry, my Lord, it’s stationary.”

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            • That is sooo funny! Gizzy! I love it! The dialogue that Richard and Keith had in RH was so brilliant-they worked so well off each other. You made my day now!!

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                • The “short poisonous dwarf and the tall hapless beau” so right on the money! My 2 favs were the necklace episode where Guy just tries so hard to win Marion, just a clever episode and the one in Season 2 where Marion is up the tree and Guy says “I’m coming Marion!” My heart just melted. Guy was never around when The Sheriff really needed him. They looked like they were having a blast although with all those candles in the Castle they must have been roasting most days. Not to mention Richie Guy’s trusty horse.

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                  • Oh, I loved the necklace episode. Precisely for what RA himself once said – it was a bit like a ‘play in a play’. And of course, it was just so touching to see RA pleading with Marian.
                    Yeah, I think RA was sweating buckets while filming in Hungary.

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                    • For sure well at least now he can enjoy Budapest in the summertime in better garb than leather although he looked AMAZING in those leather pants, Matrixy jackets.

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    • Hooray for the new laptop – and commiserations for having to share it. I completely agree – everybody needs to have a personal laptop for themselves. There’s nothing more annoying than sharing a machine, even with loved ones.

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    • Happy to hear you have a new computer but you really need your own! 😉 (Maybe you need to buy him his own! :D) I’d never be able to share one. It’s mine and mine alone although family use it for little things now and then. If my husband had still been alive there is no way I’d have been able to “Richard” with him around, much as I loved him! This may sound really bad but I’m a little relieved that I didn’t “discover” Richard until a couple of years after he passed away, so I’ve been following RA for over 14 years with no sign this will ever change! 🙂 So thankful for all the ways he has “lifted me up” over the years.

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  3. I want to see him in a comedy, something lighter stuff, where he can smile whimsically. I would smell in my seat. I have no idea which play, but I don’t want him dead, cruel or psychedelic for the moment. I think he would be great when he can play also more relaxed

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        • Yep although I loved his brooding smirks as Guy. I thought they were smoking hot! I never bought in to him saying that he wanted the viewer to feel repulsed by Guy (or whatever word he used at that time). I mean it RH was a family show although I think a bit progressive for U.S. audiences but I thought Guy was complex, funny, devastatingly handsome and tormented but in a good way. It would be great for Richard to find a romantic comedy where he could play a modern guy with modern problems (ie looking for love in a digital age) against someone like Cate Blanchett where he goes toe to toe with a great actress.

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          • Well, Richard completely failed in his task of making the viewers despise Guy. He just gave too much life to the character – and his handsome face ;-).
            Nice idea for a modern rom-com. Cate Blanchett would be a great fellow-lead.

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            • For sure even if season 3 I loved him long curly hair and all (although THAT hair or extensions or cap or whatever is the correct term took some getting used to.) His eyes just expressed so much and I loved his interaction with Keith Allan’s character albeit truncated in Season 3. I was trying to think of another actress like Cate Blanchett (Emma Thompson is a bit too old) maybe Julie Delpy who would give him a run for his money but I was drawing a blank. I like Keira Knightley a lot but she is a year older than Lucy Griffiths so it would be nice someone closer to his own age.

              I thought he could play a Londoner or Dubliner (go Ireland) who can’t find love and meets a strong willed woman online or in a blog or wherever middle age people are supposed to meet these days. Something lite and funny and sweet and not dark, menacing where no guns or swords or knives are involved for a change.

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              • I didn’t really like his look in season 3 (not a fan of long hair), but the story line at least gave Guy a conscience, and that was good.
                If I had the option, I’d probably prefer to see him in his natural English accent – just because I don’t want to hear him butcher the Irish accent. (Although chances are that he might be able to get the accent right. He’s put on an Irish accent a couple of times in interviews, and got it right #shoppingtrolley)
                Definitely something light and funny with an end where he doesn’t die but gets the girl 😉

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                • Absolutely he gets the girl, he and we need a Happy Ending film right now esp with all the doom and gloom going on. The Claude character-was that his natural English accent or did he play around with it? I wish he had been on screen longer.

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                  • I only watched the film once, and tbh it didn’t really stand out to me that he was using an accent that differed from his co-stars. That is to say, I thought he didn’t sound very English, at all, and the character certainly did not come across as English to me. But as I said, I’ve only seen the film once, so I could be wrong.

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  6. Sorry, I am getting seriously behind here! Hmmm. Thing is, I think he would be marvellous in either a classic or a modern play as he definitely has the range, but he has said he is an ensemble player and I think he would rather do a passion project rather than just something flashy. Given his stated admiration for writers such as Mike Bartlett, something new, written for him would be interesting. Otherwise, something Greek and dramatic about the clash of destiny and State and in a tunic where we can see his arms and knees 🙂

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    • That would be totally cool if Bartlett wrote a play for him or for him to star in. I saw Bartlett’s King Charles III in Washington DC a few years ago just brilliant.

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  7. i would love to see Mr. Richard Armitage in these plays, The Phantom of the Opera(the phantom), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde(both characters), or Dracula( Dracula or van helsing), or maybe a murder, mystery play

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  8. I’d love for him to fulfill his dream and play Richard III on stage.
    I wish he wasn’t so opposed to musicals. I’d love to see him in something like Les Miserables. Or Kinky Boots. LOL There’s so many wonderful musicals out there.
    But I’d really like him to stretch his comic chops which he thinks he doesn’t have and we know he does.
    One of my favorite plays was I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick. Or maybe an ensemble piece like Noises Off by Michael Frayn.

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  9. Richard III of course or some other Shakespeare (Mcbeth) first somes to my mind, but there are surely others he would be good in… have to think! 😉

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Let me know what you think!

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