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www.jewishnews.co.uk
Jewish News 17 December 2020
Weekend / Entertainment
PHOTOGRAPHY
THEATRE
Alzheimer Society’s 2021 Calendar Robert Speker’s amazing photographs of care home residents recreating classic album covers have been selected to feature in the Alzheimer’s Society Official 2021 Calendar. The quirky images, taken at Sydmar Lodge Care Home in Edgware during the first lockdown in March, show residents posing as Adele, David Bowie and Taylor Swift – and swiftly went viral after they were posted on social media. Other pictures show recreations of albums from Queen, The Clash and Bruce Springsteen. On Twitter, the images have been viewed more than 11 million times and received 136,000 likes and 43,000 retweets. Now Speker, the home’s activities
co-ordinator, has helped to create the charity calendar using his photos and has pledged 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to Alzheimer’s Society. He said: “I just wanted to try something a little different and I also thought this would be a good way of spending some quality oneto-one time with residents. “Every one of them was more than happy to be involved. Even though the idea was to replicate famous album covers, I wanted their character and personality to shine through too, and I hope I have managed to achieve that.” The Care Home Album Covers calendar is priced at £6.99 at shop.alzheimers.org.uk
ANIMATION
The Magician’s Elephant Homeland actor Mandy Patinkin (left) features in an all-star voice cast for Netflix’s stunning animation, The Magician’s Elephant, currently in production. Based on Kate DiCamillo’s awardwinning novel of the same name, the film follows a young boy named Peter (played by The Undoing’s Noah Jupe) who is searching for his long-lost sister, played by Pixie Davies (Mary Poppins Returns) when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. When Peter asks if his sister is still alive, he is told the answer lies in finding a mysterious
Come From Away: The Concert While theatres have been asked to close their doors once more, plans are afoot for Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s musical to return in February as Come From Away: The Concert. The specially adapted concert version of the West End hit at the Phoenix Theatre features reduced audience capacity to allow for safe social distancing. Come From Away tells the inspiring true story of how the residents of Gander, Newfoundland, welcomed 7,000 stranded passengers from around the world after they were grounded following the terror attacks of 11 September 2001.
Among them was Rabbi Levi Sudak of Edgware as well as a Holocaust survivor. Producers of Come From Away, John Brant and Joseph Smith, said: “Cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but as uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night and gratitude grew into enduring friendships.” During its London run, the show won four Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical, as well as scooped multiple accolades across the globe. Come From Away: The Concert plays at Phoenix Theatre from 10 to 27 February 2021, www.comefromawaylondon.co.uk
NETFLIX
Fate: The Winx Saga
elephant and the magician who will conjure it, setting him off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change his town forever. The cast also includes Benedict Wong, Sian Clifford, Natasia Demetriou, Dawn French and Miranda Richardson.
IN THE WORKS
Reagan & Gorbachev The Kominsky Method star Michael Douglas (pictured, right) is teaming up with Christoph Waltz for Paramount’s new television drama series, Reagan & Gorbachev. Directed by James Foley (Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed), the drama features Douglas as US President Ronald Reagan (pictured, far right) and Waltz as Soviet
Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. The limited series has been adapted from Ken Adelman’s book, Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended The Cold War. Adelman was Reagan’s arms control director and advised him during the superpower summits held between the two presidents.
Up-and-coming British actress Elisha Applebaum stars in Netflix’s young adult drama Fate: The Winx Saga, which airs next month. The six-part series from The Vampire Diaries’ Brian Young, who serves as showrunner and executive producer, is a live-action reimagining of Winx Club, the Italian cartoon series by Iginio Straffi. Applebaum plays Musa, one of five fairies who attend Alfea, a magical boarding school in
the Otherworld where they must learn to master their powers while navigating love, rivalries and the monsters that threaten their very existence. The coming-of-age series also stars The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actress Abigail Cowen and Grantchester star Hannah van der Westhuysen, alongside Eliot Salt (Normal People) and Precious Mustapha (Endeavour). Fate: The Winx Saga airs on Netflix from 22 January 2021