The charity reading will take place on Sunday 25 October

A virtual reading of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound will take place via Zoom at 7pm on 25 October.

Jonathan Church will direct Sanjeev Bhaskar (Magnus), Samantha Bond (Cynthia), Simon Callow (Moon), Emilia Clarke (Felicity), Freddie Fox (Simon), Derek Jacobi (Birdboot), Jennifer Saunders (Mrs Drudge) and Gary Wilmot (Hound) in the production, which is narrated by Robert Lindsay.

Stoppard’s farce, which first premiered in 1968 with a cast including the likes of Richard Briers and Ronnie Barker, parodies the Agatha Christie thrillers.

The show won’t be recorded or repeated, with all proceeds from tickets (costing £35) going to the Royal Theatrical Fund. A previous reading of Private Lives raised more than £44,000 earlier this year. [Source]

Lockdown Theatre, in association with The Royal Theatrical Fund, will present a virtual reading of Noël Coward’s Private Lives September 13 at 7 PM GMT (3 PM ET).

Jonathan Church will direct a cast that includes Oscar winner Emma Thompson (Howards End, Sense and Sensibility) as Amanda, Tony and Olivier winner Robert Lindsay (Me and My Girl) as Elyot, Sanjeev Bhaskar (Art, Spamalot) as Victor, and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, The Seagull) as Sybil.

The Zoom reading will be followed by a live Q&A with the cast and director, moderated by Paul Jackson.

Tickets are £35, and all the funds raised will be used as a crisis grant to support those struggling financially in the theatre industry due to the ongoing pandemic. For tickets and additional information, visit RTFLockdown.com. [Source]

The Edinburgh TV Festival has announced new speakers and sessions for the 2020 line up including actor Emilia Clarke .

Emilia Clarke will team up with Paul Feig, who last year directed her in the movie Last Christmas, for a peer-to-peer session that will take in their work and careers. 

The team behind Sky original Gangs of London, Sky’s biggest drama launch since Chernobyl, reunite to dissect the appeal of the critically acclaimed family crime epic. The show’s stars, Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù and Pippa Bennett-Warner join award-winning creator and director Gareth Evans, writer Lauren Sequiera and Pulse Films executive producer, Thomas Benski, to discuss the challenges and opportunities for storytelling on TV versus film, choreography of the fight scenes, and how they delivered the style of big budget, US sensibilities to the UK’s small screen.

Other sessions include Europe’s top public broadcasters giving their take on the challenges and opportunities ahead. Joining Noel Curran, Chair of the European Broadcasting Union, the panel includes Delphine Ernotte, chief executive, France Télévisions; Thor Gjermund Eriksen, director general, NRK and Ulrich Wilhelm, chairman, ARD. [Source]

‘Game of Thrones’ star Emilia Clarke has announced a new project she’ll be overseeing in the coming weeks, as she enlists the help of some celebrity friends in reading poetry over Instagram.

The Emilia Clarke web series is a wonderful new idea from the actress, where she and her friends “who will be reading aloud poetry for the heart and soul.” The actress and her celebrity friends will be reading ‘The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind and Soul’.

She started off her first entry in the series by saying to her followers: “Hi everyone, so this is just a little introductory post to something that I’ve been putting together over this time that we’ve been experiencing.”

Clarke then began to read aloud a poem about loneliness, which she dedicates to brain injury survivors and the charity Same You. Clarke previously revealed that she suffered two brain aneurysms while filming ‘Game of Thrones’.

Be sure to stay tuned over the coming weeks as the Emilia Clarke web series kicks off. [Source]

Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You has been assembled from some of the best-known voices in the UK in a week and will be published in July

Adam Kay, who has topped bestseller charts with his stories of life as as junior doctor in This Is Going to Hurt, is pulling together a book of “love letters to the NHS” from major names including Paul McCartney, Michael Palin, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson.

Kay started the project a week ago and already has 100 contributors signed up, from authors such as Lee Child, Jacqueline Wilson, EL James and Jilly Cooper to presenters including Graham Norton, Emily Maitliss and Peter Kay, actors from Dawn French to Emilia Clarke and Joanna Lumley, and sportspeople including Peter Crouch and Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Each is writing a personal story about how the NHS was there for them and how it changed their lives, with all profits from the book to go to NHS Charities Together and the Lullaby Trust, which supports parents bereaved of babies and young children.

“Every single one of us owes so much to the NHS. It is our single greatest achievement as a nation, always there for us, and never more so than now,” said Kay, a former junior doctor turned comedian and writer. “Since this project was conceived barely a week ago, I have been blown away by the number of people who have been in touch to share their amazing stories. I hope that the book, and the money it raises for charity, will in some way manage to say thank you to the heroes who are putting our lives before their own every day.”

Bill Bryson, Nick Hornby, Ian Rankin and Martin Freeman will also be among the letter writers, as will Caitlin Moran, Peter Capaldi and Zoe Ball. The book will be published on 9 July.

Publisher Orion’s Anna Valentine said the stories told were “by turns deeply moving, hilarious, hopeful and impassioned”.

Orion’s parent company, Hachette UK, recently began offering free ebooks to NHS workers, after author Mari Hannah was contacted by a frontline NHS worker telling her that her books were keeping her spirits up. [Source]

Want to dine with the Mother of Dragons?

Emilia Clarke is auctioning off a virtual dinner with her in exchange for donations to the Same You COVID-19 relief fund.

The “Game of Thrones” star took to Instagram to ask fans to help her raise £250,000 ($309,358) for the cause.

“How would you feel about having dinner with me virtually?” the 33-year-old actress said in a post on Monday. “When you donate … 12 lucky people will join me virtually and we’re going to put together a storecupboard dinner Together. We’ll cook it and then we’ll eat it together.”

She continued, “We’ll discuss lots of things. Isolation and fear and also funny videos and you know, the fact that I can’t really cook. So it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be interesting.”

Money raised will help provide stroke and brain injury patients with “essential support: as well as help free up hospital beds needed during the pandemic.

“100% of your generosity will fund virtual rehab clinic support in the coming weeks,” the captioned the post. “A very big task and a very big ask but you are all very big hearted souls so I know you’ll want to help me help them! ❤️🏆❤️.”

The donation link can be found here. [Source]

Emilia Clarke and her dog are the latest celebs to take part in the “Save with Stories” campaign.

The “Game of Thrones” star took to Instagram Live where she tried to read “Bear’s Loose Tooth” by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman but her puppy, Ted, was more occupied on licking Clarke’s face.

Once things calmed down, Clarke was able to read the four-minute story to help entertain children at home during self-isolation and raise money for the Save With Stories Fund organized by No Kid Hungry and Save the Children.

“THIRTY MILLION CHILDREN rely on school for food. Responding to the needs of kids during these school closures, @savethechildren and @nokidhungry have a new fund @SAVEWITHSTORIES to support food banks, and mobile meal trucks, and community feeding programs with funds to do what they do best—and also—with educational toys, books, and worksheets to make sure brains are full, as well as bellies,” Clarke wrote next to her video.

She then asked fans to help out with a $10 donation by texting SAVE to 20222. [Source]

Now that celebrities can reach their fans on a more personal level over social media, the lines between celebrity and activist have blurred. Many actors, musicians, and models use their platforms to raise awareness about the issues they care about. And several famous faces have joined 2000 supporters in signing an open letter to global leaders asking them to “tackle the emergency facing people and planet” including hunger, poverty, education, and climate change. Little Women’s Emma Watson and Game Of Thrones Emilia Clarke’s names appear alongside Malala Yousafzai, Dr Jane Goodall, and #MeToo founder Tarana Burke urging leaders to take action.

The letter was published on the Global Goals website alongside a video illustrating the campaigners’ points. In 2015 the UN committed to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development Plan which agreed to tackle the problems mentioned in the new open letter by 2030. Danny Boyle, Emilia Clarke, Spike Lee, Idris Elba, Richard Curtis, Stephen Fry, and Thandie Newton were among the celebrities who signed the open letter.

“[Five] years ago, at the United Nations, 193 countries committed to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development,” it reads in part. “A historic plan to end extreme poverty, conquer inequality and fix the climate crisis. Look at our world now. Our climate is heating up. Natural disasters are increasing. Millions flee their homes.

“Children suffer without vital food and healthcare. Activists are murdered for their views. Girls and women are refused an education and subjected to discrimination and violence. But we still dare to hope that in 2020 you will act decisively and courageously and kickstart a Decade of Action. We need you to act faster. To find the finance. To track implementation. To unlock radical solutions. We are watching you. And we will fight every day, for people, for the planet.”