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This fascinating text offers the first in-depth exploration of acting processes in British television. Focused around 16 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.>
List of contents
1. General Introduction
2. Soap Opera
3. Police and Medical Drama
4. Comedy
5. Period Drama
6. General Conclusion
About the author
Tom Cantrell is Lecturer in Drama and Acting Head of Theatre at the University of York. He has published two books which include interviews with actors. The first, Playing for Real: Actors on Playing Real People (Palgrave, 2010) was co-edited with Professor Mary Luckhurst. The book is a collection of interviews with high-profile actors who have portrayed real people on stage and screen, and as such was the first of its kind. Interviewees include Ian McKellen, Eileen Atkins, David Morrissey, Simon Callow and Jeremy Irons. His second book, a monograph entitled Acting in Documentary Theatre, (Palgrave 2013) was the first to analyse how actors approach verbatim and documentary theatre. He is currently co-editing Acting in British Television with Christopher Hogg (Palgrave, forthcoming). He teaches on the BA and MA courses in Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television. His research interests include: verbatim and documentary theatre, modern British political theatre, playwriting, acting theory and television performance.
