Stanley Townsend
Encyclopedia
Theatre
Townsend's work in theatre includes: Remember This, Guys and Dolls and PhedrePhèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; The Alice Trilogy, Shining City
Shining City
Shining City is a play by Conor McPherson, set in Dublin which was first performed in London's West End at the Royal Court Theatre in June 2004....
(for which he won the Irish Times Best Actor Award
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
), Under the Blue Sky
Under the Blue Sky
Under the Blue Sky is a three-act play written by David Eldridge. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 14 September 2000, directed by Rufus Norris.-Original West End Production:...
and The Weir
The Weir
The Weir is a play written by Conor McPherson in 1997. It was first produced at The Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London, England, on 4 July 1997. It first appeared on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on 1 April 1999. It has since been performed in Toronto, Dublin, Belfast, Boston,...
at the Royal Court
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
, London; The Wake, Trinity for Two and Sacred Mysteries at the Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...
, Dublin; The Gingerbread Mix-up at St Andrews Lane, Dublin; Prayers of Sherkin at the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
, London; Someone to Watch Over Me at West Yorkshire Playhouse
West Yorkshire Playhouse
The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England is a theatre which opened in March 1990 as part of the regeneration of the Quarry Hill area of the city...
, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
; The Plough and the Stars at the Young Vic, London; Democracy at the Bush Theatre
Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...
, London; Speed-the-Plow
Speed-the-Plow
Speed-the-Plow is a play by David Mamet which is a satirical dissection of the American movie business, a theme Mamet would revisit in his later films Wag the Dog and State and Main ....
for Project Arts Centre
Project Arts Centre
Project Arts Centre is a multidisciplinary contemporary arts centre located in Dublin's Temple Bar that showcases cutting-edge visual art and performance....
, Dublin; Saint Oscar for Field Day Theatre Company
Field Day Theatre Company
The Field Day Theatre Company began as an artistic collaboration between playwright Brian Friel and actor Stephen Rea. In 1980, the duo set out to launch a production of Friel's recently completed play, Translations. They decided to rehearse and premiere the play in Derry with the hope of...
, Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
; Sexual Perversity in Chicago
Sexual Perversity in Chicago
Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a play written by David Mamet that examines the sex lives of two men and two women in the 1970's. The play is filled with profanity and regional jargon that reflects the working-class language of Chicago. The characters' relationships become hindered by the caustic...
, The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother than its natural parents....
, The Country Wife
The Country Wife
The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun...
, Nightshade and The White Devil
The White Devil
The White Devil is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication and satire made it a poor fit with the...
for Rough Magic, Dublin; Who Shall Be Happy...? for Mad Cow Productions, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, London and tour; and 'Art'
'Art' (play)
‘Art’ is a French language play by Yasmina Reza that premiered on 28 October 1994 at Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The English language adaptation, translated by Christopher Hampton opened in London's West End on 15 October 1996, starring Albert Finney. It played on Broadway in New York...
in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. He can currently be seen appearing in Happy Now?
Happy Now?
Happy Now? is a play by Lucinda Coxon, first staged at the National Theatre, London in 2008.-Plot:After a conversation with Michael, a middle aged businessman, at a conference hotel, Kitty begins to wonder what life is really all about as she desperately tries to balance family life with personal...
, a new play by Lucinda Coxon
Lucinda Coxon
-Plays:Coxon's plays include Nostalgia and Vesuvius at South Coast Repertory, California; Improbabilities at Soho Poly; Wishbones and Waiting at the Water's Edge at the Bush Theatre, London; Three Graces at Lakeside Theatre, Colchester and the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester...
at the National Theatre, London. He played Eddie Carbone in the excellent production of A View from the Bridge at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh in early 2011.
Television
Townsend's television credits include: ZenZen (TV series)
Zen is a British television series produced by Left Bank Pictures for the BBC, co-produced with WGBH Boston for its Masterpiece anthology series, Mediaset and ZDF. It stars Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino and is based on the Aurelio Zen detective novels by Michael Dibdin. The series was filmed on...
, Whistleblower
Whistleblower (TV series)
Whistleblower is a two-part IFTA-winning fact-based RTÉ drama which focuses on the Michael Neary scandal that erupted in the 1990s. Neary is a retired Irish consultant obstetrician/gynecologist who gained notoriety when it was discovered that he had performed what was considered an inordinate...
, He Kills Coppers, Prosperity
Prosperity (TV series)
Prosperity is a series of four one-hour dramas for television from director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Mark O'Halloran. Prosperity features "four powerful, moving and funny stories set on the same day, with each episode examining the life of a single character." The series first aired on 3...
, Saddam's Tribe, Rough Diamond
Rough Diamond (BBC TV series)
Rough Diamond is a television series co-produced by BBC Northern Ireland and RTÉ. The series also appears on RTÉ One in the Republic of Ireland...
, Waking The Dead
Waking the Dead (TV series)
Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case Unit comprising CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000 and there have been a total of nine series...
, Spooks
Spooks
Spooks is a British television drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 – 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, as the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a...
, The Virgin Queen, Hustle
Hustle (TV series)
Hustle is a British television drama series made by Kudos Film and Television for BBC One in the United Kingdom. Created by Tony Jordan and first broadcast in 2004, the series follows a group of con artists who specialise in "long cons" – extended deceptions which require greater commitment, but...
, Omagh (film)
Omagh (film)
Omagh was a film dramatising the events surrounding the Omagh bombing and its aftermath, co-produced by Irish state broadcaster RTÉ and UK network Channel 4, and directed by Pete Travis. It was first shown on television in both countries in June, 2004....
, The Brief, Murder Squad
Murder Squad
Murder Squad is a Swedish death metal band that was formed in 1993 in Stockholm. It is a side project of two Dismember members and two Entombed members. The band is highly influenced by the American group Autopsy...
, Fallen, Wire in the Blood
Wire in the Blood
Wire in the Blood was a British crime drama television series, devised and produced by Coastal Productions for the ITV network that ran from 2002 to 2009. The series is based on characters created by Val McDermid; a university clinical psychologist, Dr Anthony "Tony" Valentine Hill , is teamed with...
, The Commander
The Commander (television series)
The Commander is a crime television series, starring Amanda Burton. The series began in 2003, and continued until 2008 on ITV.The series focuses on Commander Clare Blake as a member of the detective murder squad in London...
, Menace, Seventh Stream, Heartbeat, Station Jim, Table 12, Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
, Best of Both Worlds, Active Defence, DDU (Making the Cut), Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama set in Ireland, produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland. The original story revolved around a young English Roman Catholic priest as he became part of a rural community. It ran for six series, which were first broadcast on BBC One in the UK from 1996 to 2001...
, Peak Practice
Peak Practice
Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time...
, Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...
, A Touch of Frost
A Touch of Frost (TV series)
A Touch of Frost is a television detective series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV from 1992 until 2010, initially based on the Frost novels by R. D. Wingfield....
, The Governor
The Governor (TV series)
The Governor was a 1977 New Zealand television miniseries or docudrama on Sir George Grey, co-produced by TV One and the National Film Unit, with Grey played by English actor Corin Redgrave...
, The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
, Parnell, Nighthawks, Fortycoats & Co.
Fortycoats & Co.
Fortycoats & Co. was an Irish children's television drama series produced by RTÉ and broadcast on RTÉ One during the 1980s. The series was cancelled in the early 1990s.-Premise:...
, Lost Belongings, Lapsed Catholic and Glenroe
Glenroe
Glenroe was an Irish television drama series broadcast between September 1983 and May 2001 on RTÉ One. The programme was a spin-off from Bracken, a short-lived RTÉ drama itself spun off from The Riordans. Glenroe was broadcast on Sunday nights at 20.30, generally from September to May. The show was...
, Ashes to Ashes
Ashes to Ashes (TV series)
Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...
and Sherlock (TV series)
Film
Film includes: Killing BonoKilling Bono
Killing Bono is a 2011 comedy film directed by Nick Hamm, based on Neil McCormick's 2003 memoir Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelgänger....
, Happy-Go-Lucky
Happy-Go-Lucky
Happy-Go-Lucky is a 2008 British Comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. The screenplay focuses on a cheerful and optimistic primary-school teacher and her relationships with those around her...
, Nativity
The Nativity Story
The Nativity Story is a 2006 drama film based on the nativity of Jesus starring Keisha Castle-Hughes and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Filming began on May 1, 2006 in Matera, Italy and in Morocco. New Line Cinema released it on December 1, 2006 in the United States and one week later on December 8 in the...
, Flawless, The Tiger's Tale, Isolation, The Libertine
The Libertine (2005 film)
The Libertine is a 2004 film starring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich, Samantha Morton and Rosamund Pike. Directed by Laurence Dunmore in his first outing and adapted by Stephen Jeffreys' from his play of the same name, the film stars Johnny Depp as John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, a notorious rake...
, Inside I'm Dancing
Inside I'm Dancing
Inside I'm Dancing, also released under the title Rory O'Shea Was Here, is a 2004 Irish film directed by Damien O'Donnell and starring James McAvoy, Steven Robertson, Romola Garai, and Brenda Fricker...
, Tulse Luper II
The Tulse Luper Suitcases
The Tulse Luper Suitcases is a multimedia project by Peter Greenaway, initially intended to comprise three "source" and one feature films, a 16-episode TV series, and 92 DVDs, as well as Web sites, CD-ROMs and books...
, Suzie Gold
Suzie Gold
Suzie Gold is a 2004 British film starring American actress, Summer Phoenix. It is the directorial debut of Ric Cantor. It was released by Pathé on 5 March 2004 in the United Kingdom.-Plot:...
, Wondrous Oblivion
Wondrous Oblivion
Wondrous Oblivion is a 2003 British film directed and written by Paul Morrison and produced by Jonny Persey.Set in suburban south London in 1960, several themes run through the film, though the main storyline concerns the friendship between a young boy, David Wiseman who is the son of European...
, American Girl
American Girl (film)
American Girl is a 2002 American film directed by Jordan Brady, starring Jena Malone, Michelle Forbes, Brad Renfro, Alicia Witt, and Erik von Detten. The film premiered on October 16, 2002 at the Austin Film Festival...
, Monsieur N, Mystics, The Van
The Van (1996 film)
The Van is a 1996 film, based on the novel by Roddy Doyle. Like The Snapper, it was directed by Stephen Frears. It was entered into the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.- Plot :...
, My Friend Joe
My Friend Joe
My Friend Joe is a 1996 film directed by Chris Bould starring Schuyler Fisk and John Cleere. The film is based on the 1985 Swedish novel Janne, min vän by Peter Pohl.- Cast :*Schuyler Fisk as Joe*John Cleere as Chris Doyle...
, Moll Flanders
Moll Flanders
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders is a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1722, after his work as a journalist and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719...
, Jake's Progress, Beyond Reason, Good Girls, In the Name of the Father, Blue Ice
Blue Ice (film)
Blue Ice is a 1992 film directed by Russell Mulcahy and stars Michael Caine and Sean Young. It is a crime thriller involving a former spy , who is presently a jazz-club owner, who becomes immersed again in the world of espionage and counter-intelligence.Caine plays Harry Anders, who according to...
, The Miracle
The Miracle (1991 film)
The Miracle is a 1991 drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan. It stars Beverly D'Angelo, Donal McCann, and Niall Byrne. It was entered into the 41st Berlin International Film Festival.-Plot:...
and Taffin
Taffin
Taffin is a 1988 Irish thriller film directed by Francis Megahy and starring Pierce Brosnan in the title role of Mark Taffin. It also featured Ray McAnally, Alison Doody and Jeremy Child...
.