Damian Lewis returned to Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park in Allie Esiri’s brain child Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year – Live! last weekend, thirty-one years after he played the title role in Hamlet.
I assume it was a happy experience for Damian to be on the Open Theatre stage again, and so I would like to celebrate his return to Open Air Theatre by revisiting him as a 23 year old kid, ahem, actor, in Hamlet!
Today is Memorial Day – a day of remembrance honoring all men and women that died in active military service. And it gives us a great opportunity to salute all war heroes, and in particular Major Dick Winters and Easy Company.
I know a thing or two about war. My day job is to study and understand war. I have written academic articles on war, I have taught on war… and even though I can write about war for pages and talk about it for hours as a scholar, the human cost of war is still incomprehensible to me.
Let me take a moment and look at my own family. My maternal grandmother never knew her father because he was a soldier in WWI in the Eastern Front in Turkey, and he literally froze because of the cold as he fought against the Russians. My paternal grandmother never knew her father, either; because he was also a soldier in WWI and was killed by a shrapnel in Gallipoli as he fought against the Anzacs. Continue reading “Let’s Salute Major Winters – the Rank and the Man – on Memorial Day”
“A Damian Lewis live show contains fun. Rock’n’Roll. Good music. And an amazing band that I play with.” — Damian Lewis at Latitude Festival Press Day
Yes, sir! All those coupled with a truly engaged and energetic crowd at Boisdale of Canary Wharf made my 48 hour lightning trip to London exactly a year ago more than worth it! Now I am going back to that very day and living it all over again!
Firstly, I thank my brilliant friend Patrick (who happens to be the drummer Will’s dad) for convincing me to go! Believe it or not, I was on the fence since we are now used to going three or four gigs at a time on tours. The Boisdale gig is a one off and it is of course wonderful if you live in London, or somewhere in Europe (short and cheap flights) but you need to factor in a lot in your decision if you fly from the US like me. The good news is that I could get my ticket with miles and Patrick gets a table for us. I tell my friends that I’m going and when they check they find out that the venue does not sell single tickets. And here is my Whatsapp exchange with Patrick when I share this information with him! Continue reading “Throwback Thursday to Damian Lewis at Boisdale of Canary Wharf”
L-R: Damian, his sister Amanda Yaxley, his brother Gareth Lewis, and brother in-law Charles Yaxley during the bike ride in memory of Hugo and Helen in June 2022
I find it beyond impressive when families turn their tragic losses into good for many others in memory of the loved ones they lost. Ride4Hugo, a campaign Damian’s family run in memory of Hugo Yaxley, Damian and Helen’s nephew, who tragically died in a car accident in November 2020, and also in memory of Helen, who passed away only 5 months after Hugo’s accident, is an extraordinary effort aimed to do good for so many people.
2025 is marking the 5th anniversary of Hugo’s car accident and almost five years since the passing of Helen McCrory. So Hugo’s older brother Tom is getting ready to take on new bike challenges this year with the first one coming up only in a few weeks in the Scottish Highlands!
I wrote this post just after the closing night of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? back in 2017 and updated it once. While it feels like yesterday, I published it more than eight years ago — so it truly deserves a Throwback Thursday.
