HUGH BONNEVILLE: A SELECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE

We are proud to present the first major retrospective of the distinguished British actor Hugh Bonneville, best known for his roles in ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Paddington’. These titles are established favourites, so we have decided to focus instead on those with which our audience may not be so familiar. We are particularly delighted that we have permission to screen some of Hugh’s TV work theatrically in our Cinema. Hugh has kindly supplied us with personal notes on all the films being screened, and we are delighted to welcome him to Chichester to attend the screening of ‘To Olivia’, when he will be joined by its director, John Hay, for a Q&A. A full list of Hugh’s ‘back catalogue’ can be found at www.hughbonneville.uk

Fri 11 Aug 16:15 – Auditorium

Tue 15 Aug 11:30 – Auditorium

Love Again

Dramatisation of the romantic life and professional relationships of the poet Philip Larkin (Hugh Bonneville), from his arrival as librarian at Hull University in 1955 to his death in 1985. Bonneville brings to life the many layers of the complex main character: his prudish mother, his unresolved issues with his father and his inability to commit to one woman. Larkin’s poetry is interlaced throughout, and it is not difficult to see where his attraction lay for the many women who fell in love with him (and who knew about each other, yet continued to see him!). Cerebral, fun-loving, jazz aficionado, loyal friend: it is always more than looks. Women moved beyond the baldness, deafness and short sightedness. And a beautifully nuanced performance by Eileen Atkins as his mum is a bonus.

UK 2003 SUSANNE WHITE 75M BBC2

Hugh Bonneville writes: “I’m really proud of this BBC2 film, which has never been repeated, put on iPlayer, nor released on DVD – so come and see it while you can! We shot it in 12 days, on a shoestring. Deep snow one day, brilliant sunshine the next, just when it mattered, which made it look like we’d filmed in different seasons and had a huge budget. I love the script by Rick Cottan, Susanna White’s direction is pitch perfect and the cast is superb – and it was the second time I got to call Eileen Atkins ‘mother’ (the first being in a BBC adaptation of ‘Madame Bovary’).”

Our thanks to the BBC and the BFI National TV Archive for this screening.

Twenty Twelve

2011 Episodes 1-3

A dry-as-a-shaken-martini BBC mockumentary about the organising committee for the 2012 Olympics in London. Bonneville plays Ian Fletcher, the harried Head of Deliverance for the 2012 Games –a guy so well versed in corporate-speak he can put a positive spin on any situation. And in his new position, there’s a whole lot of awful to go around, what with all the pressure to deliver an Olympics that fulfils buzzwords like “Sustainability and Legacy”.

UK 2011 EPISODES 1-3 JOHN MORTON 90M BBC4

Hugh Bonneville writes: “John Morton’s wickedly smart mockumentary is probably the hardest material I’ve ever had to learn because (along with ‘W1A’) the text was so precise, every ‘um’ and ‘er’ being scripted. The group scenes were musical in tone and rhythm: hit one bum note and the whole thing went off key and we’d have to start again. John’s recurring directorial comment was ‘go faster and don’t smile’. The show proved eerily prophetic: not only did some athletes spend hours on a coach getting lost on their way to the Olympic village, as happened in one of our episodes, but our first episode – about the countdown clock going awry – aired on the day the real countdown clock was unveiled in Trafalgar Square and promptly broke down.”

Our thanks to the BBC for this screening.