The Importance of Being Earnest cast visits Empire Cinemas ahead of October’s Empire Extra screenings
Empire Cinemas played host to a visit from the cast of Oscar Wilde’s much-loved classic play, The Importance of Being Earnest, in advance of the play’s live screening at 12 of the chain’s regional cinemas on Thursday 8 October 2015.
The two young couples from the iconic play – played by Michael Benz (John (Jack) Worthing), Emily Barber (Gwendolen Fairfax), Philip Cumbus (Algernon Moncrieff) and Imogen Doel (Cecily Cardew) – visited the cinema in full costume before returning to the Vaudeville Theatre to perform the acclaimed Noel Coward classic. The screening will air at Basildon, Birmingham Great Park, Clydebank, Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Newcastle upon Tyne, Poole (Tower Park), Slough, Sunderland, Swindon (Greenbridge), Walthamstow and Wigan. The new production stars one of Britain’s best-known stage, screen and television actors, David Suchet (familiar to millions of TV viewers as the detective Hercule Poirot), who plays the role of the formidable Lady Bracknell, plus the play will be broadcast with additional backstage footage and cast interviews exclusive to the cinema event.
In addition to The Importance of Being Earnest; this October sees an eclectic series of live arts screenings and special one-off events coming to Empire Cinemas through Empire Extra, with performances includingThe Who: Live in Hyde Park, MET Opera: Il Trovatore and NT Live: Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch. The innovative programme delivers the crème de la crème of arts, music, theatre and opera direct to the cinema screen, providing cinema-goers a whole new range of exciting content.
Jon Nutton, Marketing Director of Empire Cinemas, said: “We’re delighted to announce October’s exciting and eclectic Empire Extra line up, which includes performances from incredible talent such as Benedict Cumberbatch and David Suchet. It was brilliant to host cast members from The Importance of Being Earnest at Empire Cinemas ahead of their screening on October 8th, which we expect to be very popular amongst our devoted customers.”
Screenings this month include:
MET Opera: Il Trovatore
3rd October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1KDKcx2
Soprano Anna Netrebko’s dramatic and vocal skills are on full display in her next new role at the Met—Leonora, the Verdi heroine who sacrifices her own life for the love of the gypsy troubadour. Tenor Yonghoon Lee sings the ill-fated Manrico, baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky is his rival, and mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick is the mysterious gypsy with the troubled past. Angela Meade sings Leonora in later performances. Marco Armiliato conducts Sir David McVicar’s Goya-inspired production.
ROH – Le Nozza Di Figaro (Live)
5th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1OylRGt
Often considered a perfect opera, Le nozze di Figaro represents Mozart’s genius at its most lively and delightful. Based on a play that was originally banned for its political content, the fast-moving libretto creates realistic characters made even more human by Mozart’s outstanding music. David McVicar’s popular staging of this comedy returns in the hands of the leading British conductor Ivor Bolton. The cast is led by the star bass Erwin Schrott, who has sung the role to great acclaim at Covent Garden before, partnered with star Romanian soprano Anita Hartig in the role of Susanna.
The Who: Live in Hyde Park
7th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1NhQO2X
Filmed in June this year, this is a chance for fans young and old to experience the phenomenal finale of The Who Hits 50! Tour which Roger Daltrey described as “The beginning of the long goodbye.” The legendary pioneers of British rock celebrate their 50th anniversary with this stunning show, performed on a glorious summer evening in front of a 65,000 strong crowd in London’s Hyde Park.
The Importance of Being Earnest (Live)
8th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1FxvQqs
Don’t miss celebrated actor and Poirot star David Suchet as the formidable Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s much loved masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest, which is being broadcast LIVE to cinemas from London’s Vaudeville Theatre on 8 October 2015. Having opened to critical acclaim with 4 star reviews from The Guardian, The Times, The Evening Standard, Daily Mail, The Independent and The Stage, the play will be broadcast with additional backstage footage and cast interviews exclusive to the cinema event. Directed by Adrian Noble (Amadeus, The King’s Speech, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), Wilde’s superb satire on Victorian manners is one of the funniest plays in the English language – the delightful repartee and hilarious piercing of hypocrisy and pomposity will make you laugh out loud!
I Believe in Miracles
13th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1K7m4MO
In 1975 Brian Clough had gone from being football’s most exciting young manager to being seen as impossible to work with after walking out on Derby County, leaving Brighton under a cloud and being sacked as manager of Leeds United after just 44 days. His only offer of work came from a run down second division club called Nottingham Forest whose brief glory days in the 1950’s were seen as well behind them. It was predicted that Clough would last less than a season but in five he’d won a remarkable two European Cups consecutively and produced one of the greatest domestic football teams in the games history. I Believe in Miracles tells how Clough pulled off the greatest team story ever told. Using unseen footage of games and the great man himself from that period, they tell us about his remarkable man management and how he convinced a team of players, largely written off by the fans and media, to beat the world’s best.
NT Live: Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch
15th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1EOqkFh
Academy Award® nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game, Frankenstein at the National Theatre) takes on the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.
Directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, National Theatre Live will broadcast this eagerly awaited production live to cinemas. As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralysed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
MET Opera: Otello
17th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1Ni0rP8
The Met season opens with Verdi’s masterful Otello, inspired by Shakespeare’s play and matching it in tragic intensity. Director Bartlett Sher probes the Moor’s dramatic downfall with an outstanding cast: tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko plays the doomed Otello; new soprano star Sonya Yoncheva sings Desdemona, Otello’s innocent wife and victim; and baritone Željko Luèiæ plays the evil Iago, who masterminds Otello’s demise. Dynamic maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.
ENO: The Barber of Seville (Live)
19th October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1IYfVkY
Live from the London Coliseum in stunning HD, The Barber of Seville will have you smiling from the moment it begins. Filled with fun and farce, English National Opera’s classic staging of this sunny adventure follows the escapades of the barber Figaro as he assists Count Almaviva to prise the beautiful yet feisty Rosina away from her lecherous guardian Dr Bartolo.
RSC Live 2015: Henry V
21st October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1JTb5Hq
Henry IV is dead and Hal is King. With England in a state of unrest, he must leave his rebellious youth behind, striving to gain the respect of his nobility and people.
Laying claim to parts of France and following an insult from the French Dauphin, Henry gathers his troops and prepares for a war that he hopes will unite his country.
RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran continues his exploration of Shakespeare’s History Plays with Henry V performed in the 600th anniversary year of the Battle of Agincourt. Following his performance as Hal in Henry IV Parts I & II Alex Hassell returns as Henry V.
MET Opera: Tannhauser
31st October
Ticket link: http://bit.ly/1LXeDva
James Levine conducts Wagner’s early masterpiece in its first return to the Met stage in more than a decade. Today’s leading Wagnerian tenor, Johan Botha, takes on the daunting title role of the young knight caught between true love and passion. Eva-Maria Westbroek is Elisabeth, adding another Wagner heroine to her Met repertoire after her acclaimed Sieglinde in the Ring a few seasons ago. On the heels of his recent triumph in Parsifal, Peter Mattei sings Wolfram, and Michelle DeYoung is the love goddess, Venus.
For further ticketing information visit www.EmpireCinemas.co.uk or call 08714 714 714.
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For further information please contact House PR:
T: 020 7291 3000
E: Rob Leary – [email protected]