Categories Audio Dramas & Radio

“Letters from the Past” – Erica James – Audiobook Narrated by Jemma Redgrave

A new audiobook – “Letters from the Past” by Erica James – narrated by Jemma Redgrave has been released today. The listening length is 13 hours and 29 minutes.

It’s the autumn of 1962 in the idyllic Suffolk village of Melstead St Mary. Evelyn Devereux’s husband, Kit, is planning their 20th wedding anniversary party. But as they prepare to celebrate, Evelyn receives an anonymous letter that threatens to unravel the secrets she’s kept hidden for many years – secrets that reach back to the war and her days at Bletchley Park.

Evelyn’s sister-in-law, Hope, has brought joy to countless children with her best-selling books, but despite having a loving husband and caring family, happiness has never come easily to her. Then in an instant her fragile world is turned upside down when she too receives an anonymous letter. Across the village, up at Melstead Hall, Julia Devereux has married into a life beyond anything she could have dreamt of, not realising until it’s too late that it comes with a heavy price.

Meanwhile, in the sun-baked desert of Palm Springs, Romily Devereux-Temple, crime writer and former ATA pilot, is homesick for her beloved Island House, where she’s saved the day more times than she can count. On her return home, and shocked to learn what has been going on in her absence, she finds herself reluctantly confronting a secret she’s kept hidden for a very long time.

Once again Romily is challenged to save the day and hold the family together. Can she do it and maybe seize some happiness for herself at the same time?

The audiobook is available on Amazon free with an Audible trial or £20.12 if you do not have or wish to subscribe to Audible.

Categories Audio Dramas & Radio Doctor Who Media

“UNIT: Incursions” – Trailer Released

Big Finish have released the trailer for “UNIT: Incursions” which is due for release this month. Looks like we don’t just have River Song…but more than one Kate Stewart…

Categories Grantchester TV series

Jemma to Guest in “Grantchester” Series 4, Episode 5

Jemma will guest as Amelia, the mother of the new Vicar, Will, in episode 5 of “Grantchester”, which airs on ITV1 on Friday 8th February 2019 at 9pm.

Thanks to ITV, we have 2 promotional images of Jemma in “Grantchester” (full size images in the Gallery):

The synopsis for Episode 5 is:

Will is settling into the new routines of his life in Grantchester: sermons and services in the church, working the punch bag at the gym, and suffering sniping comments from Leonard in the vicarage.

But then an unexpected phone call summons Will back home, and he asks Geordie for his help: Will’s father has got himself into some trouble. It’s a chance for Geordie to discover where Will really comes from, and it’s not what he expected, taking him into a very unfamiliar – and unfriendly – world.

Will hasn’t been home in a while, running from a past he wants to forget. But you can’t outrun it forever, and when one vicious beating leads to a grisly murder at a sprawling ancestral home, scandal threatens to engulf the Davenport Family, and life will never be the same for Will again.

Full size versions of the above images are in the Gallery.

Categories Holby City

Jemma Redgrave – HD Screencaptures – Holby City S20E25 – Primum Non Nocere Part Two

HD Screencaptures (1920 x 1080) of Jemma Redgrave from Holby City Series 20, Episode 25 – “Primum Non Nocere – Part Two” are now in the gallery.

Here’s a preview:

Gallery Link: Holby City – S20E25 – Primum Non Nocere – Part Two.

Categories Holby City TV series

Synopsis and Promo Images – Holby City – Series 20, Episode 25

The BBC have released the synopsis and some promo images for Jemma Redgrave’s second episode of Holby City – Series 20, Episode 25 – “Primum Non Nocere -Part Two.” The episode airs on BBC1 on WEDNESDAY 20 June 2018 at 8pm. The synopsis reads:

The pressure’s on for Gaskell to fix Jac and the whole hospital is watching. With past decisions weighing on his mind and an inquisitive research student shadowing his every move, will Gaskell risk proceeding with Jac’s surgery?

When a medical emergency strikes too close to home, Serena’s priorities are tested and Bernie fears for the future of their relationship. Does she still hold a place in Serena’s life?

Fletch and Abigail are forced to confront their feelings for each other in the most public way possible. Is it time to cut their losses?

Below are the promo images featuring Jemma Redgrave – full size versions are in the gallery:

Categories Articles & Interviews Media

Old interview #14: “Sex and fame for the quiet one”

Daily Mail (London)

October 11, 1993, Monday

SEX AND FAME FOR THE QUIET ONE

BYLINE: Lester Middlehurst

IF THERE could ever be such a sub-species amid theatre’s most controversial family group, then Jemma Redgrave would be marked down as the Quiet One.

She has somehow managed to avoid all the lurid headlines which attach themselves to the rest of the dynasty like clingfilm.

While her father Corin and her aunt Vanessa suppressed their talent in favour of Marxist rantings, the Quiet One kept her political opinions to herself and established herself as one of Britain’s most gifted young actresses.

While cousin Natasha Richardson was making news by cavorting with her leading man Liam Neeson, during her marriage to impresario Robert Fox, the Quiet One married a barrister, an eminently non-showbusiness figure, and has become happily pregnant.

And while her other cousin, Joely, was being denounced far and wide for the graphic and lingering nature of her sex scenes in the televised version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the Quiet One was winning acclaim for her role as Anthony Hopkins’s daughter in the rather more bucolic Howards End.

But once a Redgrave, always a Redgrave. Next month, it would seem, the soubriquet of Quiet One will be lifted from Jemma’s shoulders for ever. She is about to star in what is perhaps the sexiest series ever to appear on British television.

In her first scene during BBC2’s adaptation of The Buddha Of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi’s subversive novel of a young Anglo-Indian man’s voyage through sex, drugs and politics in the Seventies, Jemma is seen doing the ironing naked.

From then on, there are very few areas of the Redgrave form which are not featured. The four-part series, is certainly one of the most sexually explicit I have ever seen.

EVEN Kureishi was worried when the BBC bid for the rights to the book, which won the Whitbread Prize for a first novel. He said at the time: ‘I don’t think they can re-create all the book’s sex on television because it is so explicit.’ Well, the BBC has remained so faithful to the original that the American networks have refused to buy the series.

Given that her scenes make cousin Joely’s romps with Sean Bean in Lady Chatterley appear rather prim, how does 28-year-old Jemma feel about the prospect of becoming the most talked-about Redgrave of them all?

‘Do you think it’s explicit?’ she asks, wide-eyed. ‘I suppose it will provoke a reaction. I hadn’t really thought about it. I just think that there have been explicit things on telly for a very long time, but each time it happens it seems to provoke a new reaction.

‘I suppose it sounds cliched, but when I had to do those scenes I so loved the part that I thought they went hand-in-hand with the character. You always have thoughts about exposing yourself to that extent and the reactions it may provoke, but when it came down to it I didn’t have any real qualms.’

Jemma stars as Eleanor, a neurotic young actress who takes hero Karim (Narveen Andrews) on a sexual voyage from adolescence to adulthood.

She says she discussed the scenes with her husband before taking on the role and he gave his blessing. ‘If he had objected we would have had to talk it through, but he read the scripts, thought they were terrific and said I had to do it.

‘He hasn’t seen it yet and I doubt very much that we’ll watch it together. He can watch it if he wants to when it’s on television, but I shall probably go out and get quietly drunk. I’ll video it and watch it later with the curtains closed.’

Jemma has already seen the series at a private screening with other cast and crew members. She says she is proud of it. ‘I thought that if I was able to sit and watch it with other people then I would be happy for it to go out on television.

‘The hardest part was walking out of the darkened room when the screening was over, but I didn’t feel embarrassed. I thought the director, Roger Michell, had done it very well.

‘I met Roger twice before I accepted the part and I trusted him. You do feel terribly vulnerable when you take on something like this, but Roger made us feel quite safe.

THERE was no salaciousness of any sort. Narveen and I had two weeks of rehearsals before we started the first block of filming, and another two weeks before the second block, so we were able to talk about the scenes and establish a friendship.

‘It wasn’t like turning up on the set for the first day and not knowing who you were going to be working with.

‘If I’d thought at the time about the millions of people who might be watching I would have stayed under the covers and never come out. I would have been frozen to the spot, so I didn’t allow that thought to even enter my mind.

‘I know actresses who say they could never do nude scenes, but I don’t have a hang-up about it. I don’t think it’s because I’m an exhibitionist, it’s just that I don’t lose sleep over what people might think about my body. I’m not a supermodel, but I’m not unhappy with my body either.

‘Doing sex scenes is not the easiest thing in the world, but it’s part of the job. It’s acting. And whatever confidence it takes to get up and do any performance, or create any role, is the same confidence it takes to do those scenes. If you view them as another piece of acting it’s not so hard.

‘I don’t mind people switching on to be titillated, as long as they switch on. They can decide afterwards whether they thought it was a good piece of telly or not.

BUT IT worries me if they think it’s filth, because I don’t think there is anything filthy about it. I don’t worry about people watching for the wrong reasons. I don’t know that there is such a thing as an audience you don’t want.

‘What you want is for the maximum amount of people to switch on and then have the debate after they’ve watched it. There will be people who will say this sort of thing shouldn’t be on television, and that’s their prerogative.

‘But I expect it will carry all sorts of warnings beforehand. There are three other channels to watch.

‘I know people are going to dwell on the series’ sexual content but there is a lot more to it than just the sex. It is representative of the times we are living in. It is being screened when we are still living in a very worrying time of increasing racist and fascist attacks.

‘That’s why I think a series like this has its place on television alongside all the period dramas and other programmes.’ Perhaps it is a sign of the theatrical bohemianism she has inherited from her fellow Redgraves that enables Jemma to view her most controversial role with almost child-like confidence.

It will be interesting to see how the Quiet One reacts to the furore which is about to engulf her.

Categories Articles & Interviews Media

Old interview #13: “Jemma is stage stuck”

The Express

September 28, 2004

DAY & NIGHT; JEMMA IS STAGE STUCK

BYLINE: KATHRYN SPENCER, JULIE CARPENTER & KATE BOHDANOWICZ

ANY pairing of the Redgrave acting dynasty is guaranteed to pull in the punters, so its good news that Jemma Redgrave has a burning ambition to appear on stage with her father, eminent thesp Corin.

The problem?

Corin, only brother of Vanessa and Lynn, can’t fit it into his packed schedule. “I’d love to do pretty well everything with him but he’s so booked up, ” says flamehaired Jemma, 38, who starred with Vanessa and Lynn in 1990 in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters and played the 19th-century physician Dr Bramwell. “He’s playing King Lear at the moment but I couldn’t go on stage and see his character get his eyes gouged out.”

There could, she says, be a fourth generation of actors on the way in the shape of her sons Gabriel, 10, and Alfie, four, by husband, QC Tim Owen. “Gabriel wants to be a comedy actor and Alfie is the most dramatic person I know.”

Categories Articles & Interviews Media

Old interview #12: “Role is family affair for Jemma”

Sunday Express

January 23, 2005

ROLE IS FAMILY AF FAIR FOR JEMMA; REVIEW

BYLINE: PAULA KERR

In her latest TV drama, Jemma Redgrave plays a struggling single parent. Here, she talks to PAULA KERR about her famous relatives and rather complicated family history

WHEN IT came to playing a single mum in the new ITV thriller, Like Father Like Son, Jemma Redgrave had only to look to her own childhood for reference.

In the dark two-part drama, co-starring Robson Green, she plays the struggling single parent of a boy suspected of murder.

She also enters into a relationship with her son’s teacher (Green), admitting to him that her ex-husband, played chillingly by Phil Davis, is a serial killer.

Jemma was born into a distinguished acting dynasty.

Her father is veteran actor Corin Redgrave, her aunts are the highly respected actresses Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave and her cousins include stunning Natasha and Joely Richardson. Corin and Jemma’s mother, the society model Deirdre Hamilton-Hill, split when Jemma was nine.

“My mum was a single mother, ” she says. “When my parents were together, I remember there were lots of rows. It caused terrible unhappiness to both of them and a certain amount of misery to me and my brother. Afterwards, though, it must have been bloody hard for mum to be on her own, ” says Jemma, who is married to QC Tim Owen, 42. They live in north London with their children Gabriel, nine, and three-year-old Alfie.

When her parents split, mother and daughter moved to Earls Court, London, while Jemma’s brother Luke, now a film director, was sent to boarding school.

Jemma’s childhood took on a Bohemian theme.”The flat was open-house to actors and musicians. Mum also had a boyfriend, who I didn’t get on with, whose friends were into all sorts of dodgy stuff and called themselves the Chelsea villains.”

When her mother, who died seven years ago, wrote her scornful memoir, To Be A Redgrave, about her failed marriage, Jemma, 37, refused to read it. “She wrote it to make money. She was always broke.

In her day, you married a man who could provide a good home.

She wasn’t fitted for a career. She was a model, though that work ended when she had children.”

Most of her family have hit the headlines at some time. Vanessa Redgrave’s ex-husband, director Tony Richardson, died of Aids while sister Lynn’s husband, John Clark, fathered a child by their daughter-in-law. Joely Richardson has split from her husband, while Natasha Richardson is married to outspoken Irish actor Liam Neeson and Jemma’s late grandad, Sir Michael Redgrave, admitted to bisexual activity.

Jemma, 38, remains staunchly loyal to them all and says she has learned to brush-off attention from the Press. She is especially defensive of her grandad. “He kept that secret for a long time. That part of his nature was illegal when he grew up, so he couldn’t reveal it, which was tragic.”

Through her teenage years, she fought the idea of becoming an actor. “I felt under a certain amount of pressure to give acting a shot. “I tried to encourage myself to have an alternative route but acting was a compulsion.”

She enrolled at drama school Lamda and went on to win parts in Howards End, with Sir Anthony Hopkins, and controversial TV drama Buddha Of Suburbia, with Brenda Blethyn, although she made her name as Eleanor Bramwell in costume drama Bramwell, seven years ago.

More recently she was in ITV’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays, as Mary Arnold, wife of education reformer Thomas Arnold, played by Stephen Fry.

She harbours an ambition to work with director Mike Leigh.

“He uses improvisation in such a way that the actors surprise each other on camera. It’s such an exciting challenge for any actor.”

Like Father Like Son, ITV1, tomorrow and Tuesday, 9pm.