Rosalind Knight
1933 - 2020In 1955, she made her first impact on screen as a lady-in-waiting in Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955), which also featured her father in the cast. A year later, having come to the attention of a movie producer, she played Annabel, one of the schoolgirls, in Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (1957) (decades later, she would return as a teacher in the sequel The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980)). This set the tone for a number of subsequent comedic roles which included a couple of early Carry On's and the Tony Richardson-directed Tom Jones (1963), in which she played the giddy Mrs. Harriet Fitzpatrick. While doing the Carry On films she was not under any form of contract and was paid a mere $50 a week. In 1957, Rosalind joined her father in an early BBC adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby (1957) as the spiteful Fanny Squeers. In a later miniseries based on Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (1964), she was a splendidly shrewish Charity Pecksniff.
During her prolific career, Rosalind relished every opportunity to portray a diverse range of characters, good and bad, from servants to princesses (Alice of Battenberg in The Crown (2016)) to old maids (Aspasia Fitzgibbon in The Pallisers (1974)) to wealthy socialites (Margot Asquith in Nancy Astor (1982)) and unpleasant aristocratic dowagers (Daphne Winkworth in Jeeves and Wooster (1990)). She even essayed a retired prostitute turned landlady in the sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme (1999). In addition to a staple of period dramas she guested in numerous episodic TV dramas, including Poirot (1989), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996), Heartbeat (1992), Marple (2004), Midsomer Murders (1997) and Sherlock (2010). All the while, she remained heavily engaged in theatrical work with the Old Vic, The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre, her last appearance being the strict, incorruptible governess Mrs. Prism in Shaw's "The Importance of Being Earnest".
Rosalind was married to director/producer Michael Elliott from 1959. In 1976, she helped rebuild and re-open the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, of which her husband was involved as one of five artistic directors. She was also a patron of the Actor's Centre in London and the Ladies' Theatrical Guild (a charity founded in 1891). Rosalind Knight continued to perform as an actress right up to her death on December 19 2020, at the age of 87.
As You Like It
Ronald Eyre, Michael Elliott
Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Allen
One of the earliest hits for the newly established RSC, Michael Elliott’s sparkling version of Shakespeare's comedy is still remembered with joy by a generation of theatre-goers. The design was dominated by a huge oak tree, but the production is most memorable for Vanessa Redgrave’s luminous Rosalind, supported by Max Adrian and Ian Bannen.
As You Like It
Pleasure
Ian Sharp
Jennifer Ehle, Adrian Dunbar
Alan Bleasdale's modern re-telling of Madame Bovary. A tale of passion, greed, revenge, and of course pleasure, set in France. Starring Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar, Jennifer Ehle and James Larkin. In the French city of Rouen, the beautiful, young but bored Emma seeks to escape her dull married life. Her dreams are answered, and her comfortable, peaceful existence soon tarnished when she answers a lonely-hearts ad. She meets Gustave, a unsuccessful toy salesman, and potential con man. Together they begin a passionate affair, where they indulge in illicit sex and illegal scams. But parallel to their exhilarating affair, the police are on the hunt for a mysterious masked robber known only as Le Terroriste. As the stakes rise, and a betrayal means Emma finding herself alone, her own talents for deception develop into an overwhelming and obsessive desire for her to get her revenge.
Pleasure
Ivanhoe
Stuart Orme
Steven Waddington, Киаран Хиндс
This grand six-part adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's rousing adventure of the Middle Ages tells the epic tale of the idealistic young knight Ivanhoe (Steven Waddington) and his battle against the evil Templar Bois-Guilbert (Ciarán Hinds. Caught between the rivalries and religious struggles are Ivanhoe's betrothed Rowena (Victoria Smurfit) and the brave, beautiful Jewess healer Rebecca (Susan Lynch), who wins Ivanhoe's heart with her courage. Set against the historical backdrop of a Britain straining under the corrupt rule of Prince John while Richard the Lionhearted fights in the Crusades.
Ivanhoe
Prick Up Your Ears
Stephen Frears
Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina
Stephen Frears directs this biographical drama focusing on controversial British playwright Joe Orton, revealed in flashback after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Born in 1933 in Leicester, in the English Midlands, John 'Joe' Orton moves to London in 1951, to study at RADA, and enjoys an openly gay relationship with Halliwell in their famous Islington flat in the 1960s. However, when Orton achieves spectacular success with such plays as 'What the Butler Saw' and 'Loot', Halliwell begins to feel alienated and the pair's future looks increasingly uncertain.
Prick Up Your Ears
Il mundial dimenticato
Lorenzo Garzella, Filippo Macelloni
Sergio Levinsky, Marcelo Alejandro Auchelli
The film reconstructs the mysterious story of the 1942 Patagonia World Soccer championship, never acknowledged by the official sports organizations, and which for decades have remained shrouded in legend without the winner ever being known.
The Lost World Cup
About a Boy
Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz
Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult
Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
About a Boy
On the Eve of Publication
Alan Bridges
Leo McKern, Michele Dotrice
TV play by David Mercer. First in a trilogy concerning Marxist novelist Robert Kelvin. The occasion is a dinner party, Kelvin is concerned with a summation of his life, addressed in his head to his lover, Emma.
On the Eve of Publication
The Shell Seekers
Piers Haggard
Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell
Penelope Keeling, a sixty-four-year-old daughter of a famous artist, reflects on her life, and the fate and choices that defined it, when she arrives in the Mediterranean to stay with her headstrong daughter. Shifting through time, and falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw, the truth of Penelope's rich, heartbreaking and surprising life unfolds.
The Shell Seekers
The Lady in the Van
Nicholas Hytner
Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings
The true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years.
The Lady in the Van
Start the Revolution Without Me
Bud Yorkin
Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland
An account of the adventures of two sets of identical twins, badly scrambled at birth, on the eve of the French Revolution. One set is haughty and aristocratic, the other poor and somewhat dim. They find themselves involved in palace intrigues as history happens around them. Based, very loosely, on Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities," Dumas's "The Corsican Brothers," etc.
Start the Revolution Without Me
