News

What's going on in the life and career of Kathy Burke

  • News

    Death by satire

    Kathy will direct Dying For It, Moira Buffini’s new free adaptation of Nikolai Erdman’s satirical comedy The Suicide from 15 March until 28 April 2007 at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, London. The classic comedy was banned by Stalin before a single performance, and this “inspired by” verison centres on Semyon, unemployed, living in the hallway and watching his wife Masha slave all the hours God sends. When his last hope to earn money and gain self-respect disappears, he decides to take his own life. Word gets out and Semyon finds himself inundated with visitors begging him to die on their behalf. On the night he is to shoot himself they hold a…

  • Appearances,  News,  TV

    French tickler

    Kathy consistently pops up in various pointless newspaper or magazine chart rundowns voted by readers, or, more often than not, desperate features editors. And in a classic piece of manipulation, the Radio Times “commissioned a poll” which showed that Our Kath was the third “funniest woman of all time”, beaten only by Dawn French and Victoria Wood respectively. The reason why it is being pointed out this time is the same reason the poll was “commissioned” in the first place: because Dawn French has a new TV series called Girls Who Do Comedy, on BBC1 on Sundays at 10.15pm, which features Dawn French interviewing various female comedians in an effort to… well, it’s…

  • News

    (Not) Getting smaller

    Well, the reviews for Smaller are in (theatre of course doesn’t even exist outside of London, according to the media) – and it’s not good news. People don’t like it. The kindest has been three stars out of five; the cruelest one star. The FT gave it two stars but savaged it, starting with the line: “As dismal evenings in the theatre go, Smaller is not offensive – merely slow, obvious and banal.” The general feeling is that the writer – TV soap author Carmel Morgan – has extended a particularly traumatic episode into a full play. It left quite a few critics depressed – “remorselessly bleak” said The Telegraph. And yet, as ever, everyone praises Kathy Burke as director. It…

  • News

    Small, er, correction

    Kathy’s latest play, Smaller, is not being staged at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith from 28 March to 6 May, as was previous stated on this site. It is in fact at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. Their booking number is 0870 145 1165, or you can buy tickets online here. Since it was the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith that was good enough to point this out, it seems only fair to alert readers that the Lyric will be staging a 21st century version of Homer’s classic tale The Odyssey, complete with live music and puppetry, between now and 1 April; and then “music pandemonium” The Wolves in the Walls from 12 to 29…

  • News

    Who? What? Why? When? You!

    Kathy has been added to this year’s addition of Who’s Who. To appear in the book you must be a person of “distinction and influence”. Which is nice. Kathy was one of 1,000 new entrants this year including Dame Kelly Holmes, who won two golds for Britain in the Athens Olympics, and Frank Skinner who will apparently be listed as a comedian. Once in, you stay in Who’s Who until you die, at which point you get a place in Who Was Who.

  • News

    Plenty Moyet to come

    You can’t accuse Kathy Burke of being afraid of hard work. The God of Hell finished earlier this month, and she’s already signed up for another directing stint. Smaller, written by TV writer Carmel Morgan (Coronation St, Brookside, Shameless), will star comic legend Dawn French alongside songstress and friend Alison Moyet, and will open in Milton Keynes on 20 February. From then it will go to Brighton, Birmingham and then settle in for a six-week run at the Lyric Theatre in London (on Shaftesbury Avenue). All details and links below. Smaller is a musical play and tells the story of Bernice Clulow (Dawn French), a teacher and the life and soul of the staff room,…

  • News

    Bloody hell

    The God of Hell press reviews have come in and well… there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that no one likes it. The Telegraph has been the most forthright, calling it a “dismayingly glib piece of right-on, left-wing paranoia”. Most of the others have found the satire a bit, well, obvious. The Stage says: “as is often the case with those who rail against the establishment, he goes a bit too far”. And so on and so forth. The good news is that the “he” in the last quote refers to the writer, well-known US playwright Sam Shepard. All the reviews just don’t like the play. However, they are…

  • Donmar Warehouse
    News

    Opening the gates to Hell

    Thursday was the opening night of Kathy’s new play. She’s directing the European premiere of Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, a strong criticism of the current Republican administration in power in the US. It’s at the Donmar Theatre, from 20 October to 3 December. Box Office: 0870 060 6624. To tie in with it, she’s been interviewed in The Observer today. Quite a long piece. And interesting in that Kathy talks about going to see a therapist, as well as how deals with the job, works with people, why she dislike acting (again) and other stuff. I’ve stuck it in the Media section. No reviews as yet.

  • News

    Gone in 60 Seconds

    Only just noticed a “60-second interview” with Kathy in the Metro – London’s free newspaper – from earlier this month. Don’t know what they call it the 60-second interview: it obviously took far longer than that and takes longer than that to read too. Still, I’ve added it plus an earlier one from 2002 that I found at the same time to the Media section. Enjoy. Also learnt that Kathy apparently turned down a role in a Harry Potter film. I wonder which role. Possibly Mrs Weasley. Although another great British actress – Julie Walters – plays her, and I’d always imagined her as the first choice for the role. Who knows?

  • News,  Radio

    Wossy for tea and TV

    Kathy appeared on Jonathan Ross’ Radio 2 Saturday show yesterday, talking about The Quare Fellow, tea, her lodger Tom, life in general and why she prefers working on TV than in film. You can listen to it here, at least until 11 June, as this is a link to the most recent show rather than a permanent link. Soon as the BBC sticks up a permanent link, it’ll put it in the Media section.