Word: britain
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...here is the wonderful twist. Britain's dramatic artists have often found their strength in cataloging their kingdom's weaknesses. Now a new generation is raising its collective voice to sing the blahs. This familiar tune was heard in the late 1970s in stage and television drama; it took only a few years for graduates of those media to make their mark in film. Three provocative examples from this year's crop: Wetherby, written and directed by David Hare of the BBC and the National Theater; Dance with a Stranger, written by Playwright Shelagh Delaney (A Taste of Honey...
Miranda Richardson, the leading lady of Dance with a Stranger, is no relative of Joely's, but she handsomely fills her star-is-born role as Ruth Ellis, the London nightclub hostess who in 1955 murdered her boyfriend and became the last woman executed in Britain. Coiffed and coutured in the Marilyn Monroe fashion, Richardson shrieks her way through Ruth's sordid life with coloratura bravura. "I love you," murmurs David Blakely (Rupert Everett), a spoiled, sodden rich boy with a passion for racing cars and a taste for tarts. "Everybody does," Ruth shrugs. "Why should you be different...
Says Adams of the experience: "We really didn't know if anyone would consent to be photographed, but once the word got around, we got amazing cooperation." For one thing, Adams' sessions never took more than ten minutes. "In fact," he says, "the Prime Ministers of Britain, Italy and China [Margaret Thatcher, Bettino Craxi and Zhao Ziyang] all showed up at the same time, and we took three different sets of portraits in 15 minutes...
Italy's Craxi, whose governing coalition toppled two weeks ago, rolled up his country's flag "as if," says Adams, "he were none too certain about the future." Britain's Thatcher, surveying the Polaroid shots, dismissed the lot. Said she: "They all look like passport photos." But even the indomitable Maggie would probably agree that Adams' portraits are as eloquent and revealing as any speech given at the U.N. last week...
...White House and the Kremlin to bolster their positions in advance of the summit. Shortly after his talk, Reagan convened a minisummit in New York with U.S. allies. He met for two hours after lunch, and again for two hours at dinner, with the government leaders of Canada, Britain, West Germany, Italy and Japan. He also held bilateral sessions with each of these leaders. (French President François Mitterrand boycotted the proceedings out of pique that he had not been consulted before the meetings were scheduled.) The sessions yielded somewhat mixed results: some allies seemed a bit uncomfortable with...