VHS available in PAL and NTSC (US) system. Language: English Audio: Stereo Picture Format: 16:9 Widescreen Length: 108 minutes Other: Includes an interview with Arnold Wesker Available Options: Format: Please choose a format...VHS (PAL)VHS (NTSC) Current Reviews: 6 This product was added to our catalog on Monday 13 September, 2004.
About 'Denial'
During the development of Denial, the script was read by many of his friends and colleagues. Wesker has collected some of the responses and publishes them here, for the record... "...[you have] identified an extraordinarily involving and emotive subject, the very stuff of theatre - you write with anger in the tradition of 'J'accuse'..." Trevor Nunn, The National Theatre. " this gripping (and harrowing) play" Michael Codron, producer.
"... writing of the highest order..." Jenny Topper, Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre.
"Without question DENIAL has one of the most moving scenes I have ever read. Matthew's argument for innocence is fantastic. It is unquestionably a huge achievement as a play - absolutely of the moment ... I will make sure the new Director reads it as a matter of priority ..." Stephen Daldry, outgoing artistic director The Royal Court Theatre.
"It is unbelievably powerful, intense, disturbing. Your passion and commitment to the subject creates forceful dramatic energy which I'm sure would produce a strong theatrical experience..." Ian Rickson, Artistic Director Designate, The Royal Court "...fascinating and very powerful...I did mention to Jonathan Kent at the Almeida that I had read it and he wondered whether he could read it..." Robert Fox, Robert Fox Ltd.
"...It's a harrowing piece of writing. Ian [McDiarmid] and I were disturbed and moved but ultimately, rather heartened by it... In some ways, I don't think the Almeida is an ideal venue for it ..." Jonathan Kent, Joint Artistic Director The Almeida Theatre.
"... as ever I like and admire your writing and attack; just that this isn't for me ..." Peter Wilson, Peter Wilson Productions Ltd.
"... I thought it was a terrific piece of work which didn't shirk from energetically debating a moral issue of our time and packing a hefty emotional punch. Well done. ... I feel that you will have no problem placing this play with another theatre company ..." Adrian Noble, Artistic Director Royal Shakespeare Company
"I find it challenging and most thought provoking. As a father of four fairly young children the emotional power of the play was not lost on me..." André Ptaszynski, a director of Pola Jones Associates.
"... It is, of course, superbly written and both alarming and informative. I was moved by the end and ...can see how the play will escalate emotionally ... a terrific dramatic structure ...it's a 'yes' to the play..." Maureen Lipman
"... I thought it was impressive- The subject matter is very powerful, and the writing equally so..." Giles Croft, artistic director of Watford Palace Theatre
"I do think it's very powerful indeed, quite horrific, in fact. I think that structurally it works wonderfully well. As for the character of Valerie - and all she represents - Jesus! She's only too convincing... you've written a hell of a piece of work. I congratulate you..." Harold Pinter, from a letter dated 27 March 1999
"... quite excellent - the characters emerged as real people ... The subject is both topical and eternal. Witchcraft, religion, analysis ...an exceptional play and of considerable importance ..." Lord Gavron, Chairman The Guardian Group
Cast & Production
The Cast
Jenny NICOLA BARBER
Karen, Jenny's mother ROSEMARY McHALE
Matthew, Jenny's father JEREMY CHILD
Abigail, Jenny's sister DIDO MILES
Ziggy, Doctor and family friend BILL WALLIS
Valerie, a therapist SUSAN TRACY
Sandy, a TV journalist ELLIE HADDINGTON Bristol Old Vic Production
Director ANDY HAY
Set and Costume Designer TOM PIPER
Music JOHN O'HARA
Lighting Designer TIM STREADER
Sound Designer JASON BARNES Heritage Theatre Production
Directed for Video by ROBIN LOUGH
Produced for Video by ROBERT MARSHALL
Biographies
Nicola Barber as Jenny Young
Nicola trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and was recently at Bristol Old Vic in Paines Plough's production Western Front.
Nicola's theatre credits include:
Katherine in Taming of the Shrew (tour), Wicked Queen in Snow White (Oakwood Theatre), Waitress in Rhinoceros (Riverside Studios) Marisol in Marisol, Alison in On the Piste, Bianca in Othello (Harrogate Theatre).
TV credits include:
Big Women (Granada), Breaking the Circle (Hourglass Pictures), Agatha Christie, (Grandchild Productions).
Radio credits include:
The Trials of Christie,The Travellers Gazette,The Chronicles, Wisden's Almanac (Mr Punch Productions),Tower to the Sun, Another Life,As You Like It (Radio 4) and various animation voiceovers. Rosemary McHale as Karen Young
Rosemary's theatre credits include:
Ivanov, The Glass Menagerie, The Deep Blue Sea, Woman in Mind, Small Craft Warnings, Darwin's Flood, All My Sons, A View From The Bridge, Duet For One, On the Razzle, Hedda Gabler, Bewitched, Comrades, The Beast, Deathtrap, Objections To Sex and Violence, Pygmalion, Comedy of Errors, A Lesson in Blood and Roses, Coriolanus, Slag and The Seagull (Clarence Derwent Award).
Television credits include:
Always and Everyone, Silent Witness II, The Vet, Dr Finlays Casebook, Heartbeat, Witchcraft, A Time to Dance, Chalkface Great Expectations, First Born, Hound of the Baskervilles, Bleak House, Women Beware Women, Streetcar Named Desire and The Brontes of Haworth. Jeremy Child as Matthew Young
Jeremy's theatre credits include:
Misalliance, Oh Kay, Donkey's Years, An Ideal Husband, Scenes from an Execution, Madness of King George III, What the Butler Saw, The Reluctant Debutante, Pride and Prejudice, The Seduction of Anne Boleyn and Plenty with Cate Blanchett at The Albery.
Television includes:
'Tis Pity Shes a Whore, Jewel in the Crown, The Happy Apple, Cork and Bottle, Edward and Mrs Simpson Fairly Secret Army, Game Set and Match,First Among Equals, Sharpe's Enemy, Perfect Scoundrels, Fools Gold and A Dance to the Music of Time.
Film includes:
Privilege, Oh What A Lovely War, Young Winston, Taffin, Give My Regards to Broad St, Emily, Sir Henry at Rawlinson's End , High Road to China, A Fish Called Wanda, Regeneration and Don't Go Breaking My Heart Dido Miles as Abigail Young
Dido trained at RADA.
Dido's theatre credits include:
Safety in Numbers (National Tour), Dicken's Hard Times, Antigone, Our Day Out (Harrogate Theatre) Kindertransport (Palace Theatre/West End) and Tis Pity She's A Whore (Derby Playhouse).
Television credits include:
BBC Screenplay Permanent Red, various episodes of The Bill, Frontiers, Back Up, Casualty, London Bridge, Holding the Baby , The Verdict, Wycliffe, Men Behaving Badly, The Broker's Man, Passion Killers, Touching Evil, A Likeness in Stone, Eastenders, Holby City and The Doctors.
Film includes:
Warner Bros Black Beauty, Columbia Pictures First Knight and Tenth Kingdom. Bill Wallis as Ziggy Landman
Bill has had a long association with Bristol Old Vic with roles in The Happiest Days of Your Life, Arturo Ui in The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, Gregory Solomon in The Price and Polonius in Hamlet.
Bill has also taken leading roles in rep at Newcastle and Leicester, enjoyed seasons with the National Theatre and the RSC, and in London performed at the Young Vic, Riverside and Old Vic.
Television credits include The Avengers, Blackadder, Yes Prime Minister and five series of Dangerfield.
Bill's most recent film work was in Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Susan Tracy as Valerie Morgan
Susan has spent several seasons with the RSC where she was nominated for an Olivier Award for her role of Anna in Anna Christie and Natasha in Three Sisters.
Other theatre credits include:
Eurydice, His Lordships Fancy, Gertrude in Hamlet, Long Day's Journey into Night, Spirit of the Island, The Secret Rapture, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Loot, The Relapse, The Old Wives Tale, Favourite Nights, Duet for One, and Taming of the Shrew.
Television credits include:
Midsomer Murders, Goodnight Sweetheart, Pull the Other One, Diary of Anne Frank, The Stars Look Down, Tales of the Unexpected, Casualty, Boon, Minder, and Kavanagh QC.
Radio credits include:
The Old Wives Tale, Pillars of Society, The Relapse, and numerous readings and performances for BBC Manchester. Ellie Haddington as Sandy Cornwall
Ellie's theatre credits include: the RSC/Sam Mendes production of Richard III, after which she went on to play the lead role in Mother Courage at the National Theatre, for which she received incredible reviews. This was followed by an equally memorable performance in Matthew Warchus' production of Death of a Salesman at West Yorkshire Playhouse. She has played title roles in The Duchess of Malfi, Anna Christie, The House of Bernarda Alba and Educating Rita, for which she won Best Actress, Manchester Evening News Awards.
On television she has been seen recently in The Wyvern Mystery.
Other TV credits include:
Looking After Jo Jo, Life Support, Bad Blood, Cracker, A Wing and a Prayer, and Coronation Street.
Film credits:
Bombshell, Creatures and Breathless. Andy Hay: Director
Andy's theatre career began as an actor and musician. He has been Associate Director at Nottingham Playhouse and Artistic Director at Bolton Octagon. Since becoming Artistic Director at Bristol Old Vic he has directed Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna, Blue Remembered Hills, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (regional premiere and national tour), The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill, Flare Path by Terence Rattigan, The Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss, The Duchess of Malfi, All My Sons, Trevor Griffiths's Thatcher's Children, David Goodland's The Life and Death of Buffalo Soldier, Up the Feeder Down the 'Mouth, The Man with Green Hair, Stone Free, and two plays by Catherine Johnson (writer of the west end hit Mamma Mia). Andy also premiered his own adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
Most recently, he directed One for the Road starring Gary Wilmot, which toured nationally and the hit musical Blues Brother Soul Sisters. Tom Piper: Set and costume designer
Theatre designs for the Royal Shakespeare Company include: A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Month in the Country, Measure for Measure, Bartholomew Fair, The Broken Heart, Spring Awakening and The Spanish Tragedy. For the National Theatre: The Birthday Party and Blinded by the Sun. Other credits include: Miss Julie, Helpless, Hedda Gabler, Penny for a Song, The Frogs, Three Days of Rain, Oh! What a Lovely War, Dealers Choice, A Grand Night Out, Backpay, My Goat, Rockstation, Scissor Happy, Sweet Panic, The Cherry Orchard and Mrs. Warrens Profession. Jason Barnes: Sound designer
Jason trained at the Bristol Old VIc Theatre School and on graduating joined the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton and later worked at Chichester Festival theatre for their Summer 99 season.
Sound design credits include Company (Mountview Theatre School), Earth and Sky (Nuffield Theatre, and UK tour). The King of Prussia and Insignificance (Chichester Festival Theatre). Whilst at Bristol Old Vic he has designed sound for Bitter with a Twist, Jack and the Beanstalk and Blues Brother, Soul Sisters.
Arnold Wesker
Four Decades In Theatre
Never Compromise.. Never Compromised
by Phil Gibby, Bristol Old Vic
Arnold Wesker, born in London in 1932, is not only one of the great modern dramatists. He is also one of the true agent provocateurs of the British theatre - a man who, after four decades in the limelight, still delights in walking the tightrope between the casually provocative and the genuinely controversial.
Where might one begin the story of Arnold Wesker?
With his early plays - The Kitchen, Roots, Chips With Everything - all initially turned down by the Royal Court, and all of which went on to become acclaimed worldwide?
On that famous day in 1971 when an RSC cast refused to perform the world premiere of his play The Journalists? (A seven year legal battle followed).
With the notorious - but apocryphal - tale of Wesker pulling a gun on a director? ("I love myths like that.")
Or with the much-publicized spat with National Theatre chief Trevor Nunn earlier this year, when Wesker implied a certain over-familiarity between his own play, Shylock and Nunn's much-garlanded production of The Merchant of Venice?
"In this age of political correctness, the artist's voice must be that of an individual - not the mouthpiece of a group, or of a dogma," he argues. And there are few as fiercely individual as Wesker. He is the writer to whom the phrase "never compromise" might have been originally applied. It has been so ever since that warm July day in 1958 when Chicken Soup with Barley - having been turned down by the Royal Court - was premiered at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. John Dexter's production, supported by the Arts Council, was on stage in Sloane Square within weeks.
In many ways, this opening salvo set the tone for British theatre's relationship with Wesker. His work has, ultimately, yielded little commercial success. But ever since that benchmark year of 1958, Wesker's constituency has remained the same - the regional theatre with its in-built access to real communities and real lives; the Royal Court, that crucible of new writing, where the ability to stimulate, provoke and contest has always proved valuable currency; and Europe, where Wesker's uncomplicated approach to the dilemmas of modern society has long found an audience. He is not just the playwright who wrote Roots, but of all and any of the post-war dramatists, it is Wesker who has remained true to the grassroots. Ronald Bryden described him as "the unique outsider in British theatre."
In the late fifties and early sixties, however, Wesker was very much centre stage. By the age of 30, he had been responsible for an astonishing volley of new works, including not only Chicken Soup with Barley and Roots, but The Kitchen, Chips with Everything and I'm Talking About Jerusalem. By the time The Kitchen and Chips with Everything had - finally - been given their Royal Court premieres in productions directed by John Dexter and designed by Jocelyn Herbert, Wesker was already attracting interest from abroad, a new horizon first conquered in 1965 when Their Very Own Golden City premiered in the Belgian National Theatre prior to its British opening at the Royal Court, directed by Bill Gaskill and starring a young Ian McKellen.
This began, if you like, the "globalisation" of the Wesker reputation, an expansionist drive around the world with one remarkable benchmark following another. The Four Seasons was world premiered under his direction in Havana, Cuba, prior to opening in London and Off-Broadway. This was the first sign of Wesker's unpredictability, a lyrical love story for two, with Alan Bates and Diane Cilento. London critics were having none of it - for them, Wesker had to remain a naturalistic writer. The play continued its life all over the world.
His work became seen ever more widely, in Europe, in Japan, in Latin America, in the United States. These international relationships have endured: early in the nineties, Norwegian theatregoers were treated to the impressive, if improbable, sight of Wesker directing The Merry Wives of Windsor. Late last year, his personal archives - a substantial 90 boxes all told - were bought by the University of Texas.
And yet, for a writer who has always sought to question - especially those who ask questions - a curious, traditional Englishness has often been present in his work. His play The Old Ones, directed by Dexter for the Royal Court in 1972, gave the British public a first view of Max Wall as a "legit" actor. In '83, Wesker could be found directing that most quintessentially English of all plays, Osborne's The Entertainer, for Theatre Clwyd.
It was in 1994, however, that the contradiction that made Wesker his reputation - the ability to marry the warmly conventional with the mould-breakingly radical - was most brilliantly realised in Stephen Daldry's spectacular interpretation of The Kitchen, a production which consumed the Royal Court Theatre and its sell-out audiences in a way unmatched before or since.
It is instructive that Daldry - himself a true innovator - was among the first to appreciate Wesker's motives in writing a play such as Denial. Upon reading an early draft of the play, he responded to Wesker: "Without doubt, Denial has one of the most moving scenes I have ever read. Matthew's argument for innocence is fantastic. It is unquestionably a huge achievement as a play absolutely of the moment."
As Wesker himself told a masterclass of writers a couple of years ago: "New generations of writers are being born today who will challenge your place, and whom fickle critics and directors will hurry to champion because they are new. "That's as it should be, but by that time, you must have moved to another place. Nothing, nothing, nothing stands still. And nor must you." And neither - four decades after audiences first marveled at his audacity - does Arnold Wesker.
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