New 'My Week' + an interview for the London Screenwriters Festival
The Telegraph UK: Olivia Williams on the cyclical nature of life
By Olivia Williams
12:15PM BST 15 Oct 2013
In her monthly column, Olivia Williams reflects on autumn bike rides and newly discovered connections
Squeezing this in between a matinee and an evening performance of Scenes from a Marriage, my view of the world is somewhat blinkered this month. I live in Marylebone and cycle to the St James Theatre eight times a week via ﺮﻴﻮﺠﺪﺍ (formally Edgware Road, where you can get the best late-night lamb shawarma on Earth), past the Blairs’ retirement home, Speakers’ Corner and Buckingham Palace, experiencing Arab London, tourist London, business London but not a lot of political London. I feel a bit sad that Speakers’ Corner has about as much right to its name as The Haymarket or Pudding Lane have to theirs. I did see one chap on a two-step ladder gesturing above his head with a piece of paper, but as I drew closer it emerged that he was changing an imaginary light bulb, not preaching revolutionary socialism.
My passionate belief in the freedom of ideas is sorely tested when it comes to Jeremy Clarkson, so imagine my restraint when he drifted past me on a Boris Bike. I would have been less surprised had I encountered Heinrich Himmler sitting down to a steaming bowl of matzo balls. I had to stop myself pedalling after him and pelting him with the royal horse manure that decorates the Hyde Park cycle lanes. Surely he shouldn’t be allowed to experience the joy of autumnal cycling when it is his sworn aim to cleanse the streets of cyclists… The show is going well, thanks to some supportive reviews. But please don’t believe The Guardian when it tells you the play is “nearly three hours” long. We’re averaging two hours 33 minutes, including the interval (a little longer if the audience laughs a lot, a little shorter if I can get my tights off and trousers on in the quick-change into scene 11). In my life, two hours 33 is nowhere near three hours. Those 27 minutes are exactly how much time I have to collect my children from school, check their homework, put on my extensive cycle protective gear (NOTE Clarkson!) and get to the theatre in time for the onstage fight rehearsal.
While living in LA I befriended the grandson of Iris Origo. Origo was an Anglo-American aristocrat who lived in Italy and saved as many children as she could from the Nazis. One of them was Frank Auerbach, whom Origo brought to London from Berlin in 1939. Auerbach’s paintings of Primrose Hill, where I went to school and my children now play, are among my favourite London views. And it is thanks to a rare interview with Auerbach on Radio 4’s Front Row that this beautiful connection between two significant figures in my life has been made.
source
Aaaand "I just got off the phone with her and she told me how she recently got a job because the director had read the book and picked up on some advice I offered, about accessing the vast talent pool of female actors we have by rethinking the lead of your film as a female character (assuming the story began life with a male lead). The director did just that, rewrote the script with a female lead and Olivia ended up getting cast. Awesome!" | Olivia Williams to speak at the London Screenwriters’ Festival… Everything she ever learned form working with Wes Anderson, M.Night Shyamalan, Roman Polanski and many more…
By Olivia Williams
12:15PM BST 15 Oct 2013
In her monthly column, Olivia Williams reflects on autumn bike rides and newly discovered connections
Squeezing this in between a matinee and an evening performance of Scenes from a Marriage, my view of the world is somewhat blinkered this month. I live in Marylebone and cycle to the St James Theatre eight times a week via ﺮﻴﻮﺠﺪﺍ (formally Edgware Road, where you can get the best late-night lamb shawarma on Earth), past the Blairs’ retirement home, Speakers’ Corner and Buckingham Palace, experiencing Arab London, tourist London, business London but not a lot of political London. I feel a bit sad that Speakers’ Corner has about as much right to its name as The Haymarket or Pudding Lane have to theirs. I did see one chap on a two-step ladder gesturing above his head with a piece of paper, but as I drew closer it emerged that he was changing an imaginary light bulb, not preaching revolutionary socialism.
My passionate belief in the freedom of ideas is sorely tested when it comes to Jeremy Clarkson, so imagine my restraint when he drifted past me on a Boris Bike. I would have been less surprised had I encountered Heinrich Himmler sitting down to a steaming bowl of matzo balls. I had to stop myself pedalling after him and pelting him with the royal horse manure that decorates the Hyde Park cycle lanes. Surely he shouldn’t be allowed to experience the joy of autumnal cycling when it is his sworn aim to cleanse the streets of cyclists… The show is going well, thanks to some supportive reviews. But please don’t believe The Guardian when it tells you the play is “nearly three hours” long. We’re averaging two hours 33 minutes, including the interval (a little longer if the audience laughs a lot, a little shorter if I can get my tights off and trousers on in the quick-change into scene 11). In my life, two hours 33 is nowhere near three hours. Those 27 minutes are exactly how much time I have to collect my children from school, check their homework, put on my extensive cycle protective gear (NOTE Clarkson!) and get to the theatre in time for the onstage fight rehearsal.
While living in LA I befriended the grandson of Iris Origo. Origo was an Anglo-American aristocrat who lived in Italy and saved as many children as she could from the Nazis. One of them was Frank Auerbach, whom Origo brought to London from Berlin in 1939. Auerbach’s paintings of Primrose Hill, where I went to school and my children now play, are among my favourite London views. And it is thanks to a rare interview with Auerbach on Radio 4’s Front Row that this beautiful connection between two significant figures in my life has been made.
source
Aaaand "I just got off the phone with her and she told me how she recently got a job because the director had read the book and picked up on some advice I offered, about accessing the vast talent pool of female actors we have by rethinking the lead of your film as a female character (assuming the story began life with a male lead). The director did just that, rewrote the script with a female lead and Olivia ended up getting cast. Awesome!" | Olivia Williams to speak at the London Screenwriters’ Festival… Everything she ever learned form working with Wes Anderson, M.Night Shyamalan, Roman Polanski and many more…