Lorraine bruce biography review

If ever there was a star vehicle, Pam Gems' musical biography of Edith Piaf, is it. Some quarter of a century past, Elaine Paige played The Little Sparrow. Now, another much more recent Evita, Elena Roger, brings depthless pathos and a great voice to the role.

The lights rise on Soutra Gilmour's symbolically burnt out stage, topped by a distressed proscenium arch and fronted by a cobbled street. There as an introduction, we are given a glimpse of the end of a circular journey that sees a street girl rise to fame before plunging back to become the tottering, tiny, wheezing addict who can no longer hold a note, let alone a tune.

In some ways, this story could be a precursor to the lives of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons as depicted in a much more recent musical Jersey Boys. They too started life on the wrong side of the tracks before finding stardom on the back of a God-given talent.

In early days, Piaf, as she was universally known, supplemented her earnings from prostitution as a street chanteuse. Amazingly, the waiflike teenager was discovered singing for sous by a man who soon paid for the association with his life.

He was succeeded by a series of men who cultivated one of life's metaphorical weeds with such care that it eventually transformed into the most aromatic of roses as the highest paid woman singer in the world but with a flowering almost as brief as that of a delicate bud.

Once projected into the music business, the minute singer started a meteoric rise that was hardly slowed by Nazi occupation or her own predilections for addictive substances and bad men.

She also found some supportive friends in good times and bad, led by her pal in the early days, the broadly comic Lorraine Bruce's larger than life Toine. This tart with a heart of gold was succeeded by the towering Marlene Dietrich and Charles Aznavour (Katherine Kingsley and Owen Sharpe) as well as a number of briefly-seen but universally gorgeous male companions.

To be fair, Pia

Lorraine Bruce is a British television, film and stage actress, best known for her portrayal of Denise Simpson in the Kay Mellor Five Part BBC One Series The Syndicate In 2013, she was cast in Lucky 7, the U.S. version of The Syndicate. She trained at The Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.

Bio[]

Lorraine Bruce wanted to be an actress from the age of two. The reaction from her parents, who both were entertainers, was a mixture of pride and dismay. It became apparent as the years went by and the tales enacted in the living room and garden grew into school plays -- and a remarkable performance as a bearded Fagin in "Oliver!" drew rave reviews from the local press -- that this was not a phase, but rather a grand passion.

Bruce won a place in drama school at the Academy for Live and Recorded Arts in London, and after three blissful years spent studying the delights of Shakespeare, Miller and Lorca, she embarked on a career as an actress. She played some of the most notable rep theatres in the UK and also worked with some of the foremost directors in British theatre, including Rufus Norris ("Vernon God Little" at the Young Vic), and spent several years in the West End -- as Madame Thenardier in "Les Misérables" at the Queens Theatre and as Toine in "Piaf."

During this time Bruce worked extensively as a character actress on British television, which led to a lead in the British series "The Syndicate," on which "Lucky 7" is based. She is the only British cast member who has been cast in the U.S. version of the show.

PERSONAL INFORMATION HOMETOWN Warrington, England, UK BIRTHDATE June 18

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 The Theatreguide.London Review

Piaf
Donmar, then Vaudeville Theatre    2008-2009

This is one of those plays that rise or fall almost entirely on the strength of the central performance. And in this case the performance is more than powerful enough to carry the evening to a grand success.

Pam Gems' biography of the raw-nerved French singer Edith Piaf is at its core a rather formulaic and-then-she-sang race through the familiar rags-to-riches-to-addiction-and-decay story. But inevitably it is punctuated by a lot of classic Piaf songs, and the right balance of actor and singer can make it work.

The original RSC production of 1979 stressed the drama, with Jane Lapotaire capturing the singer's pain and neediness while her slight straining at the singing actually added to their dramatic quality. In1993 Peter Hall misguidedly transformed the play into a glitzy vehicle for Elaine Paige, who sang without strain but in her own voice, making little attempt to capture the character.

This time the balance is exactly right, with a strong singer who is also a strong actress. Elena Roger (She was Evita in the most recent revival) captures the character in both the spoken and singing sequences, and not only sings beautifully but is able (and willing) to modify her own voice to capture a close enough approximation of the Piaf sound to send shivers down your spine.

The one original touch of Gems' script is incorporating some of the songs into the story, so that, for example, Piaf sings Mon Legionnaire while giving aid and comfort to a Resistance worker during the War and the celebratory verse of Milord at victory.

The hymn Mon Dieu accompanies, without irony, the beginning of a new love affair, while a duet to La Vie en Rose cements the friendship of Piaf and Marlene Dietrich. (Other familiar figures that pop up inc

12A – 126mins – 2017 – 3D

THE MAN FROM C.A.M.E.L.O.T.

The sword in the stone, the Lady in the Lake, the Knights of the Round Table… You think you know the legend, but certainly not told like this. Lock Stock and Snatch director Guy Ritchie brings his own, erm, ineffable and idiosyncratic style to the oft-told story of the medieval British leader whose historical biography has long been entwined with mythical embellishments, magic and Merlin.

… Keep Scuttling!