News round-up: Constellations, Criminal Record and Central’s support for young actors

4 May 2024 10:36

Constellations on National Theatre at Home

The wait is over! Stunning play Constellations, starring Zoë and Peter Capaldi, is now available to watch worldwide on National Theatre at Home. Recorded during its acclaimed 2021 West End run, Constellations is an intimate two-hander about a couple whose relationship, by turns heart-warming and heart-breaking, is charted across multiple parallel universes. In other words, you see different versions of their story.

The plot may sound complicated, but don’t worry. The simplicity of the staging, in addition to the beauty and authenticity of the performances, will keep your feet on the ground, as you can tell from the superb clips from Constellations released by National Theatre at Home.

Reviewing the production in 2021 (in an article containing spoilers), the Evening Standard memorably summed it up as ‘a short, sharp, smart hit of first-class drama that humanises the randomness of the universe’. More recently, the show has caught the Guardian’s attention: it appears on the newspaper’s list of the best theatre to stream this month.

Criminal Record on Apple TV+

If you’d also like to see Zoë and Peter Capaldi take on entirely different roles, you won’t want to miss Criminal Record season one on Apple TV+. All eight episodes of this fresh, powerful crime drama are available to watch worldwide now.

In Criminal Record, Zoë plays Maureen Lenker, the fragile mother of sharp, up-and-coming East London police detective June (Cush Jumbo). Although proud of her daughter, Maureen’s relationship with the police is strained – she’s haunted by her late husband’s experience of institutional racism many years before June joined the force.

When an anonymous phone call casts doubt on a long-standing murder conviction, June’s investigation leads her to a formidable veteran detective, Daniel Hegarty (Capaldi) – and risks putting her family in danger.

Criminal Record’s plot is complex and rich. ‘The scenes with [June’s] mother (Zoe Wanamaker) and partner (Stephen Campbell Moore) hint at so much more to be told, so everything crossed for a new series,’ remarks The Herald. Thankfully, a second season could well be on the horizon, according to the Radio Times and other news sources.

Supporting ‘the next generation of theatre makers’ at Central

London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where Zoë trained, has announced it will no longer charge audition fees for undergraduate and diploma acting courses. The aim is to make Central’s training more accessible to students from all backgrounds.

As Central’s Vice-President, Zoë has spoken enthusiastically about the news, emphasising that greater diversity will enrich the arts as a whole:

‘I’m honoured to support Central’s initiative to eliminate audition fees and to help remove some of the financial barriers that aspiring artists face in accessing training. This will no doubt help to pave the way for a more accessible, diverse, and inclusive industry. In these difficult times we must all unite to support and empower the next generation of theatre makers and artists.’

As the Guardian points out, ‘Central is the most prestigious drama school to drop audition fees’ to date. The school will also introduce travel grants and continue to offer bursaries.

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‘For me, it’s a human right’ – Zoë speaks to Channel 5 News about assisted dying debate

27 March 2024 14:43

Zoë appeared on Channel 5 News on 22 March to discuss a cause she passionately believes in: the legalisation of assisted dying for terminally ill individuals in the UK. ‘I think people should be allowed to live their lives and end their lives as they wish,’ she explained. ‘For me, it’s a human right,’ she added.

Her support for assisted dying, and decision to become a patron of campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, has grown out of witnessing her dad, the influential actor and director Sam Wanamaker, dying of cancer in 1993. As Zoë reflected during the interview, little has changed in the legal landscape for assisted dying since then. She feels that legalising assisted dying in this country ‘should’ve happened years ago’.

This is the second time in recent weeks that Zoë has discussed this emotive subject on TV, following her similarly powerful Sky News interview on 7 March.

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National Theatre at Home to stream Constellations

17 March 2024 08:05

There’s fantastic news for anyone who was captivated by the 2021 production of Nick Payne’s mind-bending multiverse play Constellations, in which Zoë starred alongside Peter Capaldi. The recording of this acclaimed West End show will soon be available to stream online again, having not been seen since early 2022.

Whereas Constellations was originally released by the Donmar Warehouse, it’ll now join another London theatre’s streaming service: National Theatre at Home (which offers rental and subscription options). As Playbill points out, ‘Constellations will be a unique addition’ to the service – the only play in the library not produced by the NT itself.

You can already watch Zoë’s unforgettable performance in The Cherry Orchard (2011) via NTatHome.com. And you only have to wait until 12 April for Constellations – hooray!

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Sky News interviews Zoë about her support for legalising assisted dying

17 March 2024 07:08

This is the powerful, thought-provoking interview Zoë, a longstanding patron of campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, gave to Sky News on 7 March about legalising assisted dying in the UK.

The emotive subject is currently receiving widespread attention in the press due to MPs making fresh calls for a debate about it. A bill to make assisted dying legal in Scotland will be put before the Scottish parliament in the coming weeks.

Speaking to broadcaster Kay Burley, Zoë emphasised that ‘it’s nobody’s business but one’s own how one wants to live or die; and I think it’s about time we recognised this as something of choice – freedom of choice.’

She added that her dad, Sam Wanamaker, the founder of Shakespeare’s Globe, ‘was not allowed to’ choose when or how he passed away during his battle with terminal illness in the early 1990s.

When asked what message she had for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Zoë urged the government to make assisted dying legal.

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Rare showing of Memento Mori on BBC Four

1 February 2024 16:01

As I type, I’m unsure if these words will appear on zoewanamaker.com or not. Technical problems that followed a PHP upgrade last autumn made updating the website impossible until now (perhaps...). Thanks to fantastic work from my IT support team (otherwise known as my brother, who also built the site), I’ve at least reached the point at which I can try to add news and hope Zoë Wanamaker fans will be able to read it.

Being forced to take a three-month break from this 21-year-old project resulted in a strange sense of loss and grief. So it’s oddly appropriate that the first news article I need to write after that break covers Memento Mori, the 1992 comedy-drama adapted from Muriel Spark’s novel of the same name, in which Zoë stars alongside a host of other fabulous actors – Michael Hordern, Maggie Smith, Thora Hird, Stephanie Cole, Maurice Denham, Renée Asherson (the list goes on)... And don’t worry, the story isn’t half as grim as the title might lead you to expect!

This delightful, poignant programme was produced for the Screen Two series of thought-provoking one-off dramas. On 17 January, BBC Four viewers were treated to a rare showing of it – the first time Memento Mori has been repeated by the broadcaster in all these years. The memento mori (or ‘reminder of death’) takes the form of a series of eerie, bizarre phone calls received by a diverse group of elderly folk in 1950s London. Each call delivers the same message: ‘remember you must die’, though the recipients have rather different reactions to those words. Some are troubled; others brush them off.

Zoë’s character, Olive Mannering, is the attractive, savvy granddaughter of one of the group’s members, rambunctious poet Percy Mannering, who’s barely got a penny to his name. Olive knows one of Percy’s well-off pals has a taste for stockings and French music – and she also knows exactly how to use that knowledge to earn a little money for her granddad. Later in the story, it becomes apparent she’s willing to go to even greater lengths to secure his financial future, as well as her own.

It’s Olive who sums up the group at the heart of Memento Mori best. ‘They can be a bit overwhelming, can’t they, especially when you first meet them? But they sort of grow on you.’ Indeed, I can almost guarantee you’ll care about all of those eccentric, entertaining characters by the end of the programme, while wondering how on earth she puts up with them!

Don’t miss your chance to (re)discover Memento Mori - it’s on the BBC iPlayer for the next couple of weeks.

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