Honeysuckle Weeks tries her luck on Cameo

Cameo delivers unique personalized videos. Every video is personalized for the person receiving it, creating one-of-a-kind connections between celebrities and the people they inspire. Perfect for every occasion (or just because). From birthdays to holidays and friendly roasts, Cameo is here to help you bring magic into everyday moments both big and small. Someone for every fan.

Well, that just the blurb.

What's important is that Honeysuckle Weeks is trying her luck on Cameo too. She offers personalized and bespoke videos to those who are her fans. And there are a lot of them around.

Visit Honeysuckle Weeks' page on Cameo here.

So, if you're a fan and would like to receive or to give a personalized video from Honeysuckle Weeks, you now know how to get or give one.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'Accolade'

Honeysuckle Weeks has just finished touring the UK in the role of Cora in 'Calendar Girls the Musical', but keeps busy in 2024. Next, as of the end of May 2024, she will appear in 'Accolade'. Honeysuckle Weeks will play Rona Trenting, socially ambitious wife of celebrated writer, Will Trenting, played by Ayden Callaghan.

Behind the prestigious façade of a celebrated writer, Will Trenting (played by Ayden Callaghan) lies a web of deception and dark desires ready to unravel his carefully constructed life…

Step into the vibrant world of London’s intellectual elite, where the price of success is often too high to pay.

Accolade follows the life of a celebrated writer on the verge of receiving a much-coveted award for his work. A gripping tale of ambition, scandal, and the harsh realities that lie beneath the surface of success.

With razor-sharp dialogue, poignant moments, and unexpected twists at every turn, Accolade grips your heart and mind, forcing you to examine the fine line between truth and lies.

Originally written in the 1950s, Emlyn Williams’ play remains remarkably relevant nearly 75 years later – this dark and chilling look about the price of success and trial-by-media examines the fine line between truth and lies, good and evil, and one’s past and future.

'Accolade' opens at the Windsor Theatre Royal on Friday 31 May and will run until Saturday 15 June before embarking on a tour within the UK over the summer.

Tour Dates [Update]

PS: If you know of additional tour dates, please let me know here.

Honeysuckle Weeks was interviewed on Accolade:

“In my mind, it’s about two writers, both of whom are called William. One is a lucky Nobel-Prize-winning writer, and the other is a writer who’s been beset by tragedy. He’s a sort of, blaggard of sorts.

I think it’s Emlyn William’s writing that makes it modern. I think the audience will be quite alarmed because of the subject matter, but also I hope we’ll come to a better understanding of people in general and how nobody’s perfect, and if you really love somebody – you forgive them.

When I first read it, I thought oh I know what this is, and then I read on and it became a totally different organism. You know, one which is very hard to describe because of its moral nuance.

You have to really live and feel the character’s joy and anguish, in a way that’s more comprehensive, perhaps. It surprises you.”

Interview.

Honeysuckle Weeks to lead 'Death in Paradise'?

Another season of 'Death in Paradise' has ended on March 24, 2024. Ex-DS Neville Parker (Ralf Little) sailed off into the sunset with the love of his live ex-DS Florence Cassell (Joséphine Jobert).

With Ralf Little having exited 'Death in Paradise', fans have immediately started to speculate on who could replace him as the lead in the series.

I personally would like to see Alan Davies play a sort of Jonathan Creek-like type of detective.

However, should the BBC want a female to take on the role for the first time, then Diane Morgan is now is the 6/4 favourite to be the next DI on 'Death in Paradise'. Diane Morgan is best known for her portrayal of Philomena Cunk, an ill-informed investigative reporter.

The producers of 'Death in Paradise' might have a surprise candidate for the role of the new Detective Inspector. According to a newspaper article, Honeysuckle Weeks is a firm favourite to become the lead detective on 'Death in Paradise'. She is now 4/1 to takeover the role.

The Telegraph calls her an 'inspired choice'. 'They could do far worse [than choosing Honeysuckle Weeks]', claims entertainment expert James Leyfield.

And, well, Honeysuckle Weeks' latest theatre tour, 'Calendar Girls', has just ended. So, she's free to travel to Guadeloupe Saint Marie.

We wait with bated breath.

[Update 02 May 2024] There's a new detective in on Saint Marie. Don Gilet will play DI Mervin Wilson.

Better luck next time, Honeysuckle.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'Calendar Girls, the Musical'

The year 2023 turns out to be a very busy one for Honeysuckle Weeks. After appearing in Noël Coward’s 'Blithe Spirit' during the month of May, rehearsals have now started of 'Calendar Girls, the Musical' in which she will play Cora.

The musical is based on the play Calendar Girls (2008) written by Tim Firth, and the motion picture Calendar Girls (2003) written by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi.

Inspired by a true story, it follows a group of middle-aged women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute that are prompted to do an extraordinary thing  and set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research. The ladies turn preconceptions upside down, but are they prepared for the emotional and personal ramifications they will face as they each come into bloom?

Calendar Girls The Musical will begin performances at Theatre Royal Windsor on 30 August 2023 and will then travel to Sheffield, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Wimbledon New Theatre, Leeds, Stoke on Trent, Darlington, and Hull (See below for the provisional tour schedule).

Tanya Franks (Eastenders) stars as Annie Clarke, the witty compassionate sidekick, and who’s husband’s illness is the catalyst in this story; Maureen Nolan (The Nolans) will star as the big-hearted Ruth; Lyn Paul (The New Seekers) returns to the stage as Jessie, the frank and fearless school teacher; Amy Robbins (Coronation Street) stars as Chris Harper, the excitable, irrepressible leader of the gang, Paula Tappenden (Blood Brothers) steps into the role of intrepid Women’s Institute leader Marie, Marti Webb (Tell Me on a Sunday) will play Celia, the glamourous and sassy former airhostess, and Honeysuckle Weeks will play Cora, the rebellious musician.

Tim Firth, co-writer of the show, said: “The story and songs, a little like the real world, had been thrown in the air and come back slightly different. What we had in our hands lay somewhere between the original play and the original musical and it seemed right for a time when sunlight, optimism and humour seemed more necessary than ever. Like the calendar itself, it seemed that something dark had created something unexpectedly bright.”

Gary Barlow, co-writer of the show, said: “We’ve already had a fantastic time in the rehearsal room workshopping the show and weaving in new music, reworked songs and reimagining the book. We cannot wait to see the way these incredible leading ladies bring the story to bloom as we head out on tour later this year”.

With unforgettable songs, every performance continues to add to the nearly £6 million already raised for charity and prove that there is no such thing as an ordinary woman. This tour is proud to be supporting Blood Cancer UK, the charity dedicated to funding research into all blood cancers, including leukaemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, as well as offering information and support to blood cancer patients.

Tour Dates

Reviews
'This is a sure fire hit with those already conversant with the story through the film and is likely to win new admirers who have not yet had the pleasure of seeing it,' writes one reviewer. Source.

'Calendar Girls is still,' concludes another reviewer here, 'heart-warming, emotive and lots of fun as it progresses, and the second act alone deserved the standing ovation received from the Birmingham audience at the end. All credit goes to each of them – especially Honeysuckle Weeks who left almost nothing to the imagination.'

Louise Cannon writes: 'It is of course a triumph, but the audience is really taken through the emotions of trying to do something on a grand scale and the reasons people give, especially from Cora, played by Honeysuckle Weeks.'

And in an interview Honeysuckle Weeks herself said: “Now I want to do the sort of work that means I can take myself seriously as an actress. Obviously not as a person; that would be ridiculous – because life is ridiculous.”

Honeysuckle Weeks in Noël Coward’s 'Blithe Spirit'

Regarded as a theatrical classic, Noël Coward’s 'Blithe Spirit' tells the story of Charles Condomine, a writer who invites a psychic medium, Madame Arcati, to his home to conduct a séance as research for his new book. However, the séance goes awry, and the ghost of Charles’ first wife, Elvira, is summoned back from the dead. Elvira is visible only to Charles and causes chaos in his life by attempting to disrupt his second marriage to his current wife, Ruth.

Charles’ attempts to rid himself of Elvira only lead to more problems, and soon Ruth becomes suspicious of his behaviour. Madame Arcati tries to help, but her efforts only complicate things even further, and Charles finds himself caught between the two women, between life and death, and struggles to keep his sanity intact. 'Blithe Spirit' is sometimes called a tug-of-love comedy with a difference: one of the lovers is a ghost.

Honeysuckle Weeks was part of the cast of this radio play and played Elvira, the ghost. A radio play is a performance which has little or no visual components, and depends mainly on dialogue, music, and sound effects to tell its story.

This radio play was read in an authentic studio setting and brought to life with a 'foley artist' who recreated the sound effects and atmospherics in the style of vintage radio drama live on stage.

Besides Honeysuckle Weeks, the cast consisted of Jenny Seagrove, Tristan Gemmill, Louisa Clein, Ben Nealon, Marti Webb, and Shannon Rewcroft.

The radio play ran for three days (from May 18, 2023 until May 20th, 2023) and was performed in the Royal Windsor Theatre. The public was ecstatic.

You know who also did a stint in Blithe Spirit? Joan Hickson in 1976, who went on to play Agatha Christie's Miss Maple.

But, back to the present, and the public was enthralled, reviewing it as being 'A feast for the eyes and ears' and 'An absolute delight'.

Norah FitzGerald: The Inspiration for Sam Stewart

The adventures of Honeysuckle Weeks' Sam Stewart in Foyle's War are mostly based on the real-life story the pretty, vivacious and immaculately groomed WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) driver Norah FitzGerald, Anthony Horowitz revealed.

She was born on April 6, 1913, in Esher, Surrey, the youngest of three children of bank cashier Maurice FitzGerald (33) and his wife Mary (32). Tragically, her mother died giving birth. Maurice was left to look after Kathleen, 6, Peter, 16 months, and the baby.

Maurice remarried, and they lived in a palatial place with tennis parties and orchards and nannies. The family fortune was lost during the economic depression after 1929 and the family ended up moving to a house in Kingston.

When the war started, she was determined to do her bit for her country as a WAAF-driver. Poised and confident, she loved a good joke and a strong cocktail, and always turned out in lipstick and nail polish. By her own admission, the war years were the time of her life.

She was engaged twice to RAF-pilots, but both pilots were killed, and a third pilot was planning to propose when he too died.

After the war, childless, she devoted her life to another family’s children. In 1960 she became a governess and housekeeper to Mark Horowitz, a businessman and solicitor living in North London. Anthony then five, his brother Philip nine, and Caroline just a toddler.

[Anthony Horowitz and his parents]

Anthony Horowitz was so captivated of his nanny’s tales of wartime love and adventure that he welded them into the character of Sam Stewart. Her sense of humour, can-do nature and romantic disasters actually belong to Norah, whom Horowitz affectionately calls Fitzy.

Anthony says: "Fitzy used to tell me all these stories about her time in the war, to do with driving and drinking and young men. She had a very happy war. I guess that’s where Foyle’s War began, with the memory of all these stories she told me."

Honeysuckle Weeks has known for years that her character was based on Horowitz’s governess. "Anthony always does a profound amount of research and his stories are always based in reality. I think that’s what makes Sam so authentic. She’s based on a real person and there is nothing stranger than reality."

Norah FitzGerald died on May 5, 2001, two years before Foyle’s War first aired. Both Anthony and Caroline were frequent visitors in her final years. Caroline says: ‘The last time I saw her she was completely lucid. She asked me if she was dying and I said I thought she was. She said she wasn’t scared, when I asked, and that she had had a wonderful life and how much she had loved me. Two days later she was dead.’

Source.

Honeysuckle Weeks in Maxxx

The simple, short description of 'Maxxx' is that Maxxx is a former star of a popular boyband who longs for the life he once had before deciding to launch his solo career.

A somewhat more expansive way to describe the comedy is that it is a transgressive comedy, starring O-T Fagbenle, playing a washed-up former boyband member alongside a barely-recognisable Christopher Meloni as his former manager, a visual distillation of Tom Ford, George Michael and Clive Davis which still isn’t the most alarming part of the show. Funny, scabrous and fast Maxxx has the distinct air of a comedian making his name and there’s nothing Fagbenle won’t mine for laughs in this British version of – language alert – ‘cuntourage’.

I don't know what you think of this description, but you can be sure it's... different.

Honeysuckle Weeks will appear as Christy in the episode 'The House Party', where Maxxx and Tamzin get an exclusive invite to a party Don is throwing. Maxxx feels the pressure to engage in some questionable activities in order to catapult his solo career. With the place bursting full of industry celebs it's time for Team Maxxx to turn on the charm and land a record deal, which is a difficult task to uphold in Don's labyrinth of drugs, music and sex.

Is it just me or is the name of her personae Christy eerily akin to that of Agatha Christie?

Can't wait to see how Honeysuckle Weeks behaves in this supposedly wacky comedy.

Supposed to be aired on April 9, 2020, but postponed because of 'responding to our audience's evolving viewing habits'. Which probably should be translated as 'hardly anybody watched the first episode and those who did view it found it not remotely funny'.

Why didn't they ask Christie?

Agatha Christie is still considered the Grande Dame of thrillers. She wrote 66 crime novels and short story collections. She is the creator of two of the most enduring figures in crime literature: Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple.

Simply based on her sales figures, you might come to the conclusion that Agatha Christie knew how to construct a believable plot that readers would understand if they reached the last page of her thrillers. The stories are powerful and enduring. Only fools would dare to change them. And that's precisely what happens these days.

The estate of Agatha Christie is managed (yes, there's the dreaded key word) by Agatha Christie Limited. Their prime objective is to extract as much money out of Christie's thrillers as is humanly possible.

In 2013, Agatha Christie Limited contracted Sophie Hannah to write new stories that featured Hercule Poirot. Hannah's first try, 'The Monogram Murders' (2014), totally failed to catch the essence of Agatha Christie. The Guardian concluded, wrapped in one deadly sentence, that 'For all its approximation to an Agatha Christie, the book actually bears very little resemblance to one.' Yet, the book made enough money for Agatha Christie Limited to give Sophie Hannah the opportunity to keep writing more books that feature 'her' Hercule Poirot.

In 2013, the BBC acquired the rights to eight new adaptations of Christie's mysteries. Most of them are (and will be) created by Sarah Phelps and that was a disastrous decision. Phelps decided that Agatha Christie's stories could be adapted with new backstories, new storylines and even new killers. Hilary Strong, chief executive of Agatha Christie Limited, which looks after the author's estate, said Phelps had brought a 'new way of interpreting Christie for a modern audience'. That's one way of phrasing it, but the simple fact is that Phelps ruins the legacy of Agatha Christie by mutilating her stories.

If you decide, as Sarah Phelps did, to use the name and fame of Agatha Christie as bait for viewers and simply use the titles and part of her storylines, my advice would be not to go that way. It's sacrilege.

One should be more creative than Sophie Hannah and Sarah Phelps, and search for other ways to find a new audience for the enduring mysteries of Agatha Christie. One way is to create a series of new mysteries featuring a younger Agatha Christie, a younger Miss Marple or even a younger Hercule Poiroit as a sleuth.

The creators of the Frankie Drake Mysteries had the right idea when they cast Honeysuckle Weeks as a younger Agatha Christie.

And yes, I know there have been several recent - and rather erratic - endeavours, such as 'Agatha Christie and the Truth of Murder' (2018), where Ruth Bradley played Agatha Christie. Once. We can also mention 'Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar'  (2019), where Lyndsey Marshal played Agatha Christie. Once. Or 'Agatha and the Midnight Murders' (2020), where the great Helen Baxendale took the leading part.

Anthony Horowitz: New episodes of Foyle's War?

The first episode of 'Foyle's War' was aired in 2002. The series was canceled after the fifth season (2008), but was revived in 2010 to run for another three years. A total of 28 episodes were created by screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz.

Will there ever by another unexpected revival of 'Foyle's War'? In 2016 Anthony Horowitz said "It had to come to an end sometime. We went from 1940 all the way through to 1947 – and I told countless true stories about the war. I felt that there were no more true stories to tell about that period, I’d sort of covered pretty much every area."

But Anthony Horowitz seems to have changed his mind. “I’d certainly be up for a Christmas special  or two if anybody asked,” he told Radio Times in 2019, before addressing the 'missing year' of 1944. “It would actually make a whole series!” Horowitz recently wrote a short story, called 'Foyle's Last Case', as a Christmas special.

Foyle’s War starred Michael Kitchen as Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle and Honeysuckle Weeks as his ever resourceful driver Samantha (Sam) Stewart.

"Foyle’s War was a passion project for me from start to finish and I miss it to this day. It really cheers me up to think that Radio Times readers still hold it in such high regard," Horowitz said.

"I wrote the last episode of Foyle’s War in 2014, but no matter where I am in the world, people still tell me how much it means to them. And the repeats still get high viewing figures."

And in other news: Even Anthony Horowitz seems to read my tweets...

[Update 02 November 2019] New episodes will NOT be happening. It's simply too expensive, says creator Anthony Horowitz. ‘To be fair to ITV,' Horowitz concedes, 'it’s a cost thing. To do two 96-minute films set in the Forties or early Fifties is just so ruinously expensive and difficult. So I’m not bitter or angry with them, I quite understand where they’re coming from.’

[Update 15 February 2021] Some old news, newly found: Honeysuckle Weeks has also heard of Horowitz's idea for a spin-off series for Sam set in the 1950s. "There's been talk of her playing a landlady in a seaside boarding house," Weeks says. "I can see her growing into a Miss Marple sort of character dealing with all the characters coming to stay. I'd be very chuffed to do that. I hate to push people but maybe I should come up with a few ideas for it to help it along."

[Review] Honeysuckle Weeks in 'The Sentence is Death'

'The Sentence Is Death' is Horowitz’s fast-paced sequel to 'The Word Is Murder.' In both mysteries, he mashes up fact and fiction, telling the story through a character based closely on himself.

Buy the book here

Author Anthony Horowitz (the fictional author of the real book) is in a spot of bother: filming of the latest scene of Foyle’s War (which in fact he wrote in real life) isn’t going to plan and he’s running behind on his (fictional) novel detailing the first case he investigated with Daniel Hawthorne (as detailed in the real 'The Word Is Murder'). He soon finds those issues paling into insignificance when Hawthorne enlists his help in a new case.

When Honeysuckle Weeks (a character in this real novel but also a leading actress on 'Foyle's War') steps off a bus during the filming of a scene, a taxi pulls up, ruining the take, and out steps private eye Daniel Hawthorne. Finally, a completely fictional character!

Lawyer Richard Pryce has been found bludgeoned to death. Oddly, as Pryce was a teetotaller, the murder weapon was a bottle of wine. A bottle of wine worth £3,000 to be precise. What was the meaning of Pryce’s last words? And why did someone paint a 3-digit number in green paint on the wall next to his body?

Horowitz and Hawthorne are a team: Hawthorne solves a crime and Horowitz tags along, taking notes in order to write a book. The set-up is a bit like the television series Castle, where successful mystery novelist Richard Castle tags along with an NYPD homicide detective Kate Beckett. But Horowitz just can’t help himself — he thinks he can outsmart Hawthorne and solve the mystery. And so he interrupts interviews by asking questions at the wrong moment, draws conclusions that simply muddy the waters, and comes close to tipping off the murderer.

Just as in 'Foyle’s War', there are twists and turns and unexpected developments. The fact-fiction blurring even continues to the last page when Horowitz (the author, the character, both?) thanks his wife Jill Green, his publisher and — Daniel Hawthorne in the acknowledgments.

Well, you see, both the blurb and the reviews are in awe of this book. I'm not.

I got the distinct impression that Anthony Horowitz tried too hard, did too many rewrites, and couldn't escape his former self as a young adult writer.

Honeysuckle Weeks plays Agatha Christie

I'm quite happy to confess that I was perhaps premature (or just dead wrong) to predict the end of the acting career of Honeysuckle Weeks. I was alerted to the fact that Honeysuckle Weeks has been contracted by the creators of the hugely successful Canadian-based 'Frankie Drake Mysteries' to appear in (just) one episode.

Frankie Drake (the name of a character that was written into the story of Agatha Christie's 'Hallowe'en Party' in the latest movie adaptation) is a female private detective living in Toronto in the 1920s. Drake started the 'Drake Detective Agency' and – along with her partner Trudy Clarke – tries to solve cases the police can't, won't, or hesitate to investigate. The series is created by the same team that was also responsible for the acclaimed 'Murdoch Mysteries'.

Honeysuckle Weeks will not have to travel to Canada because, in this particular episode of the 'Frankie Drake Mysteries', Drake and Clarke will cross the Atlantic to meet Agatha Christie, played by Honeysuckle Weeks. The Episode is entitled 'No Friends Like Old Friends'.

Honeysuckle Weeks and Agatha Christie do share a common bond. Not only has Honeysuckle Weeks performed in several of Agatha Christie's plays and appeared in 'Agatha Christie's Poirot: Cards on the Table' as Miss Rhoda Dawes, but she also unintentionally emulated Agatha Christie's anxiety-driven disappearance.

Life can be circular.

[Update 09 September 2019] Maybe we can appeal to the BBC to stop producing the horrid adaptations (and I am stretching the meaning of the word 'horrid' to its absolute breaking point) of Sarah Phelps ('Witness for the Prosecution', 'Ordeal by Innocence', 'The ABC Murders', and the 'The Pale Horse').

Instead, the BBC should consider producing a series of original scripts featuring a Young Miss Jane Marple, played by Honeysuckle Weeks.

The 'Inner Wisdom' of Honeysuckle Weeks

I readily admit that I haven't seen all episodes of Foyle's War. Yet we do own almost all seasons on DVD and I do know the series is on par with the likes of Midsomer Murders, Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. On reflection, my subconscious refusal to watch Foyle's War is more to do with me than the quality of the writing or of the acting. I mean, Anthony Horowitz created the series and nearly wrote all episodes, so excellence was (and still is) assured.

So, why didn't I watch Honeysuckle Weeks playing her Sam Stewart, while I do maintain this weblog? I have the feeling that Honeysuckle Weeks is always acting a bit too 'out of breath', as if she is suffering from a wee bit of ADHD and her medication hasn't kicked in yet, but that's simply because she has a bubbly and lively personality.

Honeysuckle Weeks is pretty, but not – and she surely agrees with me on this – stunningly beautiful. I have the distinct feeling that, behind all her smiles, intelligence, rakishness and joyfulness, there's some tragedy hiding deep within her. That tragedy sometimes rather sneakily manages to escape.

And yet...

Even with all these little flaws, Honeysuckle Weeks exudes an 'inner wisdom'. As if an ancient spirit lives in her still youthful body. And that makes her special and maybe even unique in that mostly depressingly empty world of glitter and glamour she chose to work in.

Did disappearance end Honeysuckle Weeks' career?

In 2016 Honeysuckle Weeks shortly disappeared from the face of the earth. At the time, she was being treated in a mental health unit for anxiety and stress, so people were understandably worried about her welfare.

Yes, there were some similarities between the disappearance of Honeysuckle Weeks and that of Agatha Christie in 1926, but the latter was able to keep writing the mysteries she was renowned for. I suppose her publishers were having an anxious wait for her next mystery, but she quickly put them at easy with the quality of her next few books.

Honeysuckle Weeks was not so lucky and it seems that producers and production houses are now reluctant to hire her. Producing a movie or television series carries substantial financial risks and one would like to hire actors that are dependable and stable. She had counseling to help her, but it is rumoured, however, that Honeysuckle Weeks canceled one or two rehearsed readings in 2018 at the very last moment. People tend to remember that sort of erratic behaviour when they consider an actor for a potential role.

Another problem is that her career is a bit uneven. Yes, Honeysuckle Weeks did have a great run as a child actor, and she was extremely lucky to land the part of Sam in Foyle's War, but times have changed. She's older, more mature and her good looks have now faded somewhat, possibly exacerbated because of her continued smoking. Which is rather unwise because your face is the ultimate tool of an actor.

The end result of her ill-advised flight from treatment is that she hasn't been offered a proper acting job since 2016.

It is surely encouraging that my column about Honeysuckle Weeks being a perfect candidate to play Jem Flockhart receives the most visitors. Apparently viewers have not forgotten her and still want to see her act.

Honeysuckle Weeks to play Jem Flockhart?

Surgery was brutal and undertaken without either anesthetic or antiseptic, organs sliced and pickled in formaldehyde in backstreet labs, bodies boiled in copper cauldrons – the world of medical science in the 19th Century was not for the weak of stomach or faint of heart.

Elaine Thomson used her study on the social history of medicine as the inspiration for a series of acclaimed novels. The first two of these have now been optioned by the television production company behind the current primetime hit, The Durrells.

"Sid Gentle Productions have optioned them and are working on getting a writer to adapt them for the screen,” Elaine Thomson recounts, “They showed an interest as soon as the first in the series, Beloved Poison, was released and convinced me to sign on the dotted line [Source]."

Her rather gruesome thrillers feature Victorian apothecary Jem Flockhart, a woman who has to roam around disguised as a man. "I wanted someone complex and flawed, and also a female protagonist, but didn’t know how I could have a woman to be everywhere and say whatever she wanted in the 19th Century, so I decided to disguise her as a man."

So, who would be able to portray Jem Flockhart?

My choice would be Honeysuckle Weeks. She has an instantly recognizable face. Her own description of it is “period” meaning that she seems to pick up a lot of roles set in the past [Source].

Her slender body is perfectly suited to hide the femininity and to play Jem Flockhart who dashes through the Victorian underworld filled with medical men with murder in their hearts.

I have taken the liberty of alerting Sid Gentle Productions to Honeysuckle Weeks.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'Young Girl'. A rehearsed reading

Since 2008 there exists an Adopt a Playwright Award to support playwrights, who have had at least one play staged, to find the time, space and financial backing to hone their craft and write another.

The edition of 2017 featured 'Young Girl' by Adam Hughes. The cast included Natalie Gumede, Jason Merrells, Honeysuckle Weeks, Colin McFarlane and Tanya Moodie.

The play centred on Graham Clark (played by Colin McFarlane), who back in the 1970s was the first black presenter of a primetime game show. A pioneer for change, this stand-up comedian and straight-talking Yorkshire man was much loved by the nation; “just thinking about him used to put a smile on my face”, reminisces one of the cast.

Honeysuckle Weeks, courtesy of Rollo Weeks]

Fast forward to 2017, however, and that has all changed. Graham is currently in a prison cell, having been convicted of historic sex crimes. Half the nation thinks he’s guilty; the other half doesn’t want to believe it. In the latter camp is his daughter Chloe (played by Natalie Gumede), a television and radio host, who is determined to prove her father’s innocence. Whilst everyone else has given up on him she is adamant the truth will out.

It goes without saying that the theme of this play is highly topical and guaranteed to elicit strong emotions. The play itself asks some uncomfortable questions: would you – could you – stand by a family member or friend who had been convicted of a sex crime? How far would you go to prove a loved one’s innocence? And is it really possible for a person who achieved so much; made so many people happy and raised vast amounts of money for charity, to have committed such a crime? This latter is something that will speak to a lot of us – there was universal shock when, for example, Rolf Harris was convicted of indecent assault.

Where I found the writing particularly strong was how it addressed the impact of the above on family and friends – the toll taken, and the lasting consequences. Yet, although the subject matter is dark, the play is, in turns, witty and wry – and the nostalgic element lends some warmth to what would otherwise be a grim couple of hours. Even so, you could feel the tension stretched across the auditorium and a rapt audience as the play hurtled towards its shattering conclusion. Bearing in mind that this was “just” a read-through, it bodes very well indeed for the final version.

Source here and here.

Honeysuckle Weeks suffered uniform fetish shock

When Foyle’s War returned in 2013, six years after it was axed by ITV, the popular 1940s drama created by Anthony Horowitz will feature a very different Samantha Stewart.

"I asked Anthony if, this time, she could be a little bit less of an ingénue*," said Honeysuckle Weeks, who played Stewart. "I hesitate to use the word 'clown’, but she did tend to catch villians with dustbin lids."

Honeysuckle Weeks was happy that she kept her uniform buttoned up during the series, which was set during the Second World War. "It’s mostly true that the people who support you don't want to see you taking your clothes off and bonking any Tom, Dick or Harry."

The then 33-year-old actress added: "I saw a dating advert the other day that said, 'Do you wear a uniform? Or fancy those who do?’ And I thought, 'Oh, my God,’ I didn’t realise it was a fetish."

* ingénue: an innocent young woman, especially in a play or film.

Source.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'The Turn of the Screw'

Having missed a chance to play the role in a TV production some years ago, actress Honeysuckle Weeks was happy to take to the stage in 2008 as the troubled governess in 'The Turn of the Screw', a new adaptation of the classic ghost story, written by Henry James.

'The Turn of the Screw' gives her an intriguing 'corset part', as a repressed young woman from a clerical family who is forced to confront her own demons while looking after two orphaned children.

The other main character in the story is a housekeeper played by Helen Weir, who had a long running role (370 episodes) as Pat Sugden in the TV series 'Emmerdale'.

"She is a kind of narrator and a way for the audience to understand events which completely overwhelm the governess," Honeysuckle explained.

Two children have been mysteriously abandoned by their previous carers and a young woman is appointed as governess in the Victorian era. Then, the governess sees a strange figure at the country mansion and starts investigating the ghostly goings-on.

"You know the Nicole Kidman film The Others? It's basically that story in its original form," said Honeysuckle. "It's all about who was the ghost and who wasn't, but in the play it's more nebulous whether there is a ghost or it's in her mind.

"It's a challenging role getting the tension going with the audience. A lot depends on the atmosphere. I want the audience to hate the character but at other times to feel sorry for her and love her. Audiences are loving it. They've been terrified – we can hear them gasp."

Though other commitments kept her away from the theatre for a decade, she is a believer in stage discipline – "there’s nowhere to hide and it’s also good for the voice".

Source and Source. The play ran in 2008.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'Absurd Person Singular'

Fans of Honeysuckle Weeks may be in for a bit of shock when they see her in Alan Ayckbourn's 'Absurd Person Singular'.

"I start off playing a seemingly normal and sane person," she explains. "But by the end of the second scene my character, Eva Jackson, falls apart, attempting suicide several times. It might not sound it, but it is funny.

"The play is obviously different to most other things I've done. However, Eva is similar to Samantha in that they are both challenging, very determined people. But doing comedy is certainly a challenge."

Featuring an all-star cast which includes Sara Crowe ('Four Weddings And A Funeral'), Matthew Cottle ('Game On'), Marc Bannerman (Eastenders), Deborah Grant ('Bergerac') and David Griffin (Hi-de-Hi), 'Absurd Person Singular' is a classic comedy.

Set in three different kitchens, on three consecutive Christmas Eves, the play charts the success of the Hopcrofts, as they attempt to rise up the social ladder, eventually overtaking the friends who once patronised them. Havoc ensues at the drinks party they hold to impress their high-powered friends – but that’s nothing compared to what happens over the next two years when the friends return their hospitality!

"The tour has been going so well," says Weeks, who last performed at the King's Theatre three years ago as Viola in Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'.

"We have a great cast but, unlike my TV work, working in the theatre is so much harder, especially when you have to learn all your lines. The hours are better, though."

The actress who started out her career at a very young age maintains she has no real worries about finding work when she eventually becomes old and grey.

"I was recently quoted as saying, 'You don't need to retire in acting, as there will always be a need for a granny somewhere.' And it's true. Look at the likes of Helen Mirren or Dame Judy Dench – they're still performing, and in mainstream films at that. If anyone needs a granny in the future, I'll make myself available."

Source and source. Interview edited for length. Play ran in 2008

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'Twelfth Night'

Sadly, Shakespeare seems a step too far for some theatregoers. They dismiss his work as a piece of tedious antiquity not worth dusting down. Witness a disappointing scattering of vacant seats on press night.

[Image courtesy of Rollo Weeks]

Yet here was as compelling a reason to succumb to the Bard’s spell as you could wish for. A splendid cast under the direction of Patrick Mason enchanted throughout. Here was a production that strove to please with a feelgood factor that would challenge any dissenters. The comic duplicity and mistaken identities were deftly delivered, counterpointed with moments of romantic poignancy.

Matthew Kelly made a mesmeric Malvolio, every inch a pompous steward, right down to the affected, impatient twitching of his fingers. Here was vanity of stupendous gravitas yet when undone he became incandescent with hurt.

Honeysuckle Weeks, enchanted as Viola. Disguised as a boy and serving her master Orsino (Bob Cryer), she gave a wry edge to her romantic message carrying to Olivia (Rebecca Egan) in this love triangle with a twist.

[From: Shakespeare Survey - page 59]

The heavyweight humour was courtesy of the bawdy shenanigans of Sir Toby Belch (Christopher Benjamin), Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Roger Barclay) and Feste (Hilton McRae).

This trio fired off each other with impeccable timing, none more so than when their late night revelries were halted by Malvolio.

Anita Booth was a sparky Maria. Christopher Harper as Sebastian – brother of Viola – triggered the concluding confusion as the story spiralled into its farce-like denouement.

The production was staged in Mike Britton’s strikingly simple yet impressive set where the sides contract from walls to columns like vertical blinds.

Source. Play ran in 2005.

Honeysuckle Weeks: Be ‘careful’ over Time’s Up

British actress Honeysuckle Weeks (1979) has voiced her concerns over the Time’s Up anti-sexual harassment movement. The actress is best known for her role of Samantha (Sam) Stewart in Foyle's War.

"I think women have to be a bit careful," she said, "Any minute now they’re going to find out that no one wants them to dance... God forbid the frisson between the sexes should be lost, because everyone’s too terrified."

"I think it’s dangerous that people are putting in minor indiscretions with serious assault," Weeks added.

She explained she was in support of Frances McDormand’s stance who, when collecting her leading actress Bafta in a brightly-printed dress, told the audience of black gowns and tuxes: "I have a little trouble with compliance." Weeks voiced her amazement of the Bafta’s blackout: "There wasn’t a shred of make-up on anyone."”

Her feelings echo mine perfectly. The 2018 Bafta's were more like a funeral then a celebration.

Source.

Honeysuckle Weeks' lyrics in 'The Liberation of Colette Simple'

A new musical adaptation of an early Tennessee Williams short story 'The Case of the Crushed Petunia’ was penned by eight different lyricists, including  Honeysuckle Weeks, Amy Rosenthal and Robert Holman.

A brand new musical from a brand new company, 'The Liberation of Colette Simple' is a story about an awakening. Barricaded behind her white picket fence and line of petunias, Colette Simple sells trinkets from her shop in Middle America without really letting life in. But life decides to trample on her petunias one day and pay her a visit.

Based on Tennessee Williams’s 1941 one-act-play 'The Case of the Crushed Petunias', this also bears echoes of Williams’s more famous works. Colette has the mollycoddled air of Laura in 'The Glass Menagerie', and there’s a whiff of Blanche DuBois in her eventual collapse. Here though, the story is lighter, funnier and flimsier than either of Williams’s later plays.

In the hour-long show, performers Nathalie Carrington (Colette) and Gary Tushaw (everyone else) sing their way through the narrative in songs written by eight different lyricists, including Honeysuckle Weeks, Desmond O’Connor, Robert Holman and Amy Rosenthal.

French composer Vincent Guibert writes the music, resulting in a stylised, witty mix of straighter musical ballads, forties swing, rap and rock.

Though Carrington and Tushaw give committed, commanding performances, the loud onstage band often drowns out the lyrics. The songs get samey in the middle, and the piece barely varies its exhaustingly upbeat tone.

But a handful of tunes bring a charming and disarming quirkiness, such as Honeysuckle Weeks’s 'Liberation Song', when Carrington’s Colette breaks away from her old life with a frenzied physical performance. Matt Peover’s elegant stage direction contains some nice surprises: the moment Colette discovers her petunias have been ravaged, and a huge cascade of earth falls from the sky with a flump, is just brilliant.

It’s a strong first work from a company bound to blossom.

Source.

The play ran in 2014.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'A Daughter's Daughter'

The love between a mother and daughter turns to jealousy and bitterness in Christie's fifth novel published in 1952 under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love for each other finally win through?

'The Mousetrap' might be the longest running play in history, while this delicate drawing room drama, a radical departure from the murder scene for Agatha Christie, saw only a week's run when it opened in 1956. But it reveals Christie as a writer of far greater nuance and emotional insight than she's normally credited with.

'A Daughter's Daughter' traces the slightest tear in the fabric of two women's post-war lives, and the complete unravelling that follows. Roy Marsden's elegant revival, the first since the play's premiere, makes for harrowing viewing, thanks largely to Jenny Seagrove's haunting portrait of an ageing widow, Ann, forced to choose between her daughter and her new partner Richard, stoutly delivered by Simon Dutton.

 'He's the kind of man,' Honeysuckle Weeks' magnetic Sarah declares, the moment she sets foot back in Blighty and her mother's house, 'who'd make her fetch his slippers.' So he is, but the notion that her mother might be happier so doing than drinking gin and dabbling in cocaine like her arrogantly liberated daughter, is not one Sarah can countenance.

The second half begins three years later, when Ann's decision begins to bear disturbing fruits. Tracey Childs's eagle-eyed, redoubtable Dame Laura presides over this awful harvest as Ann's oldest friend, noting too the subtle shifts in post-war concepts of class, loyalty and femininity. It remains a stiff, antique affair, improbable conversations and unlikely doorbell interruptions abound. But it's also surprisingly potent, shot through with devastating crimes involving nothing so crude as a corpse nor so clean and neat as guilt and innocence.

You can't help but wish Christie had been less astonishingly successful as a crime writer if it meant she'd written more plays.

The play ran from 2009 to 2010. Source.

Honeysuckle Weeks on Anno Birkin

Who was Anno Birkin (1980-2001)?
It is something Anno often asked himself. Just before he died he scrawled that very question (similarly phrased but with an expletive inserted) in huge capital letters on the walls of the house he had been sharing with friends near Milan.

Anno, scion of one of Britain's foremost creative dynasties, belonged to a band called 'Kicks joy Darkness'. In 2001, The band was in Italy, working on their first album, when one night, in a thick fog, three of the four band members were involved in a freak car crash. Swerving to avoid a broken down car in the middle of the motorway, they crashed into a truck parked on the hard shoulder. Anno and his two bandmembers were killed instantly.

Theirs is in essence, a story of life's randomness – young men living on the edge, pursuing a dream, relishing a world that was theirs to conquer. And in a split second, it was all over.

[Anno Birkin. Picture by LaurenticWave]

Yet with every life lost, no matter how short, there is a legacy. Despite being just a month short of his 21st birthday, Anno had already made his mark. He wrote poems – hundreds of them, in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes, on any scrap of paper that was to hand. Some of them became songs. Some of them were shared with the two great loves of his live, actresses Milla Jovovich and Honeysuckle Weeks.

To celebrate the publication of Who Said the Race is Over? in 2003, some of the woman in Anno's life we asked to choose one his poems, and tell us about the Anno they knew.

[No title]
I sat by myself past the bridge by the great white balloon,
          with my guilt by the great yellow moon.
This place where I ventured with fire and with fear
          of the devil's omnipotent moon.

And the wound in my heart bled into my brain,
and the wind blew the rain in my eyes,
and I though it was tears, and I cried at my being in love.
And I writhed in the light of the moon strung above -
          that lunatic moon hung above.

My senses were sharp!
And volcanic her lingering, luminous soul, we had rolled in
the raw light of manic delusions and danced like the dead.

Her head in my hands, like a spell, like a charm,
like a luminous psalm for my psyche, my arms are wrapped
tightly, and loosely enfolding the night
and the folds of desire that are tight round my throat,
and the music of madness floats on hind legs
through the dregs of my sunken serenity.

Do you trust me to cling to your word? For I do -
  every letter.
I'm better off burned by your fire than cold to the world,
         My desire.
            My earliest memory.

We're animals trying to be angels,
but we are not able to know without words;
yet we grow without known the verb, and we love without grammar.

[Summer, 2000]

Honeysuckle Weeks
Anno wrote this poem a week or so after I confessed that I loved him, which was a terrible position to put him in because at the time, I happened to be entangled with one of his oldest friends. We had known each other since we were 15, but later, love just sort of crept up on us. We found we wanted to spend all our time talking to each other.

He came to visit me at my house in Vauxhall Fields, and we bought tickets for a flight in the Vauxhall hot air balloon which used to be tethering outside my front door. I think what Anno was doing in the poem – and in life – was trying to separate the pure from the sordid. Like a lot of teenage boys, he felt guilty about his own desires and he tried to elevate them trough poetry.

I always had the feeling with Anno that I had to catch up – he had it all figured out somehow. Because he was so complete, so perfect, everybody wanted a piece of him – and now they can have it through his poetry. He still affects everything I think about, everything I do.

The Great White Balloon was taken down shortly after the London Eye opened. But there is still a rough patch of grass where the moorings used to be and I will never forget being 100 feet above London, floating on love and hot air.

Source.

Honeysuckle Weeks in 'King Lear'. A rehearsed reading

Now at the age of 'fourscore and upward' (85!), and at the pinnacle of his career, veteran actor Joss Ackland was finally ready to take on the Everest of Shakespearean roles in an unprecedented play reading of King Lear.

Directed by world leading director Jonathan Miller and joined by an all-star cast, Joss was the first Lear to tread the boards at London’s newest theatre, the St James Theatre, before returning to his theatrical roots at the The Old Vic over 60 years after joining The Old Vic Company.

[Image courtesy of Patric Baldwin]

Ackland had pulled together an incredible company of acting friends both old and new, his aim to “bring together three generations of actors”. The cast included Joss Ackland, Tony Britton, Greta Scacchi, Tony Robinson, Michael York, John Nettles (playing Cornwall), Barrie Rutter, Honeysuckle Weeks (playing Cordelia), Shaun Dooley, Lee Ingleby, Jack Tarlton, Jos Vantyler, Vernon Dobtcheff and Robert Young.

This much anticipated gathering was presenting the reading in support of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, the disease that took Joss’s much loved wife Rosemary.

Shakespeare’s cruelest, and most demanding play, King Lear tells the story of an old man desperately trying to hold both his family and kingdom together. Loyalties and loves are divided as Lear is forced to face the realities of age and the passage of time.

"It is the irony of the play that by the time you are old enough to play Lear you are too old to play Lear," Ackland says. But not only does Joss feel he has the experience of a full life to bring to the role – a life that has not been without it’s own tragedy – he has the strength and stature too. "Lear has to be like a felled oak not a sapling."

The formidable play and cast could be seen and heard from the 22nd to the 29th September 2013, at The Old Vic and St James Theatre.

Despite the scale and grandeur of the event, the death of Cordelia stilled the nine hundred plus audience to utter silence. A testament to the quality and superb acting of this distinguished company.