AUGUST 2010 ::
2010: JULY, JUNE, MAY, APRIL, MARCH, FEBRUARY, JANUARY, MORE...
MACKENZIE STARS IN THE UK PREMIERE OF THE ALIENS
Mackenzie will star alongside Ralf Little and Olly Alexander in American Annie Baker's play, The Aliens.
WhatsOnStage has the following summary:
Set in Vermont, Jasper (Crook) and KJ (Little) are professional dropouts and best friends. They spend their days outside the back of a small coffee shop, talking music and Bukowski. Evan (Alexander) is a 17-year-old eking out his summer working in the cafe, who they draw into their world of magic mushrooms, philosophical musings and great bands that never were.
The play is currently in rehearsals and will run from 15th September to 16th October at the Bush Theatre in Shepherd's Bush, London.
JULY ::
IRONCLAD PREVIEWS AT COMIC-CON
Ironclad hosted a panel at San Diego's Comic-Con where an 11-minute sequence was shown to those in attendence. MTV Movies Blog has posted the following excerpt from this footage:
Mackenzie plays Marks, an archer, in this film about the siege of Rochester castle in 1215 by King John, played by Paul Giamatti. The film is described as being "a medieval 'Magnificent Seven'" and also stars Brian Cox and James Purefoy.
CHEKHOV COMEDIES FOR SKY ARTS
Mackenzie Crook will be starring alongside Johnny Vegas in Anton Chekhov's one act play A Reluctant Tragic Hero.
Here's the synopsis from Sky Arts:
"A Reluctant Tragic Hero; Tolkachov (Johnny Vegas) a frustrated and exasperated family man, exhausted from running constant and countless errands for friends and family, visits his good friend Murashkin (Mackenzie Crook) to let off steam, and hopefully garner some much needed sympathy. But the result of his rant only serves to see him leaving with more problems than he actually arrived with."
The play is one of a series to be filmed for Sky Arts to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the playwright's birth. Other plays will include Steve Coogan in The Harmful Effects of Tobacco, and Julian Barratt and Julia Davis in The Bear. The series will screen in November.
JUNE ::
TIME OUT LONDON ON NORTH BY NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
Glorious Management posted the following review:
A new four-part series with the potential to become a classic in the Little Britain mode. An all-star cast - Sheila Hancock, Mackenzie Crook, Penelope Wilton, Felicity Montagu and Kevin Eldon star in Katherine Jakeways's comedy about stultifying small-town obscurity, where middle-aged no-hopers live lives of quiet desperation and the young leave town at the earlier opportunity. The laughs are cruel, but the monsters of suburbia are curiously sympathetic, and the characters so well drawn and well played that this could run and run. Time Out 10/6/10
The series begins on Radio 4 on June 16th.
MAY ::
NORTH BY NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
Mackenzie is one of the stars of this new Radio 4 comedy from Katherine Jakeways, running every Wednesday at 11:30am on Radio 4 from June 16th to July 7th.
Here is the description from the writer's site:
Northamptonshire: the middle of the country. Average population, average economy, average size. Not the north. Not East Anglia. Not really even the Midlands. No identity. Until now, as Katherine Jakeways introduces Radio 4 to middle England, in case the two needed introduction...
North By Northamptonshire welcomes careful listeners to Wadenbrook - a small market town which is loved by its inhabitants and missed by no-one except the A1 (M). The characters of Wadenbrook reveal themselves, form friendships, laugh, forget to laugh, teach dogs to dance and generally live their lives.
ACCUSED
From the BBC Press Office:
"Christopher Eccleston (Lennon Naked, Doctor Who) and Mackenzie Crook (Pirates Of The Caribbean) are to star in new BBC One six-part drama Accused, by Jimmy McGovern.
Christopher Eccleston and Mackenzie Crook play the leading characters in the first two episodes of Accused; separate stories which open as an ordinary individual is led to the dock to hear his fate.
As each hour-long episode unravels we learn how each man came to be there. But on reflection should they be the accused? Are they innocent or guilty or somewhere in between? And will the jury make the right judgement?
...Mackenzie Crook stars as Buckley, a soldier's soldier. A man you need on your side if you are to survive. The Soldier Story is written by Jimmy McGovern and begins filming 10 May.
Newcomers Benjamin Smith and Ben Batt play Frankie Nash and Peter McShane respectively, two friends who join the British army. Soon they are on the frontline in Afghanistan where they learn that not obeying orders has deadly consequences, and that the enemy are not necessarily who you think they are..."
APRIL ::
WE ARE ONE
Mackenzie was one of many stars reading selections from Survival International's new book We Are One at this fundraising performance directed by Mark Rylance at the Apollo Theatre in London on 18th April.
You can visit Survival International's blog to read more about the evening.
MUSIC VIDEO
Mackenzie stars in Slow Club's "Giving Up on Love" music video, below:
Slow Club - Giving Up On Love
moshi moshi records | MySpace Music Videos
MARCH ::
BBC RADIO LINKS
The following links can be listened to again through 17/3/10.
From Radio 5 Live
10/03/10 Richard Bacon
Mackenzie Crook, star of The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean, talks about the critically acclaimed play, Jerusalem, in which he's currently starring in the West End.
From Radio 4
Afternoon Play: "Not Bobby" By Nick Warburton
Frank [Mackenzie Crook] brings a pet rabbit home. Mum gives Bobby's hutch pride of place in the sitting room. But who finished that last clue in yesterday's crossword? It wasn't mum.
WE ARE ONE FUNDRAISING PERFORMANCE OF TRIBAL PROSE
From London Theatre.co.uk
A fundraising evening in aid of Survival International, We Are One, a celebration of tribal peoples’, will be at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue on Sunday 18 April 2010, created and directed by Mark Rylance.
The evening will be a performance of tribal prose and poetry from some of the UK and Hollywood’s leading actors and musicians including Julie Christie, Mackenzie Crook, Sinead Cusack, Colin Firth, Emilia Fox, Michael Gambon, Sophie Okonedo, Mark Rylance, Danny Sapani, John Sessions, Kevin Spacey, Juliet Stevenson, Ken Stott, Zoe Wanamaker, James Wilby. (cast subject to availability!)
Time: 5pm
Tickets Telephone: 0871 297 0741
FEBRUARY ::
^ BACK TO TOP
MACKENZIE'S DOODLES ON JERUSALEM PROGRAMME
From The Evening Standard
...Observant readers of the programme can get a taste of Crook's doodles and sketches after director Ian Rickson persuaded the actor to allow them to be used as illustrations.
The star of The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean even created a couple to reflect the drugs and drink-fuelled countryside of Jez Butterworth's play with beer cans and cigarette butts amid flowers. Jerusalem has just transferred to the Apollo Theatre from the Royal Court.
Crook, 38, who lives in north London, said: "I do sketches all the time and in the early stages of rehearsals when you're sitting around and analysing the script I'm always doing doodles."
JONATHAN ROSS PODCAST
Mackenzie was featured on this week's Jonathan Ross show for Radio 2 discussing Jerusalem and is subjected to a Japanese soup flavoured lollipop. The podcast can be downloaded from here.
FIRST NIGHT PHOTOS
Visit WhatsOnStage.com to view photos from Jerusalem's opening night performance as well as the after party.
RAVE REVIEWS FOR JERUSALEM IN THE WEST END
11 February - Jerusalem's press night for its West End transfer was met with another round of positive reviews for the production:
Whats On Stage:
It's back and it's better than ever. *****
The Times Online:
A hilarious, enchanting, affecting evening.
The Guardian:
I was mesmerised...by Mark Rylance's tremendous performance as Rooster Byron.
Gerard Horan as a publican, Mackenzie Crook as a wannabe DJ and Danny Kirrane as the treacherous Davey are all first-rate. ****
The Evening Standard:
Butterworth's deliciously wild vision of contemporary England - set in a threantened pocket of rural Wiltshire - pulses with energy and poetry, and here seems imbued with an extra shot or three of pungent humour.
The Telegraph:
Now transferred to the West End and seems as miraculously fresh, funny, moving and mysterious the second time around. *****
The Independent:
Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, beautifully directed by Ian Rickson and starring the incomparable Mark Rylance, proves to be, if anything, even better than its award-laden, ecstatic publicity suggests.*****
2010 OLIVIER AWARD NOMINATIONS
Mackenzie's been nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category of this year's Laurence Olivier Awards for his role in Jerusalem. The play received five more nominations for the awards, presented by the Society of London Theatre, including Best Actor Mark Rylance, Best Director Ian Rickson and Best New Play.
Visit Official London Theatre Guide for the complete list of nominees. Winners will be announced next month.
From Variety: "Royal Court Theatre tops Olivier noms"
THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE
Visit The Independent to read their Big Interview, Mackenzie Crook: More than just the Office boy, in which he states "my pirating days are over".
IRONCLAD TEASER POSTER
Content film's released a teaser poster for the action film, Ironclad, for the European film market. Click the thumbnail below to view a larger version:
JANUARY ::
^ BACK TO TOP
Jerusalem Interviews
Visit BBC News to view a clip of Mackenzie discussing how he transitioned from television to film and stage.
Or click here to watch Mackenzie with Mark Rylance on the Andrew Marr Show from 24 January.
Sons of Russia on BBC Radio 3
From the BBC:
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Anton Chekhov's birth, actors Mackenzie Crook and Jason Isaacs explore male fragility in Russian literature...
Mackenzie reads from Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment, Gogol's The Government Inspector and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
ARCHIVE ::
BACK TO TOP ^
2009, 2008, earlier...