But National Theatre sources confirmed that Lester will star as Henry in the production, which Hytner will direct himself.The casting of Lester marks a giant step forward for black actors in British theatre. He will not be announcing his choice of plays or casting decisions officially until later in the year. It will open in May.Hytner is understood to want to show from the start that he is going to bring a more radical approach to casting and choice of productions. The National Theatre is to cast Adrian Lester as Henry V in a move that marks a breakthrough for black actors on the British stage.
He will follow in the footsteps of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh in playing the warrior king, who delivers some of the most famous Shakespearean speeches in the play’s portrayal of Henry’s victory at Agincourt.A performance of Henry V, starring Lester, will be the first production under the artistic leadership of Nicholas Hytner, who succeeds Trevor Nunn as National Theatre director next April. Whatever else, Irr?rsible won’t leave any audience indifferent.. With its improvised dialogue and strange shifts in storytelling style, his film may be uneven, but there’s a chutzpah and ingenuity here that belie any idea that this is a glorified art-house version of an exploitation pic. It’s repulsive – and is meant to be.The director has been accused of misogyny, homophobia and – most absurdly – of glorifying Front National-style thuggery Such charges utterly miss the point.

There follows one of the most gruesome rape scenes in cinema history – a nine-minute sequence shot without interruption There’s nothing coy or titillating about it. He “stole” her from his best friend, Pierre (Albert Dupontel) They’ve gone out to a party together Marcus is drunk and behaving like a jerk She heads off home, but takes a short cut via an underpass Here, she sees a pimp beating up a prostitute The pimp turns his attention on her. It takes a while to realise that the beginning is actually the denouement.
To sketch the plot in (the right way round) – Marcus (Cassel) and Alex (Monica Bellucci) are lovers. The juddering camerawork, the music and the commotion are disorientating. We follow Vincent Cassel into an S&M club where he’s hellbent on vengeance (we don’t know for what). This is a film told back to front – in the director Gaspar No? words, “a violent trip from hell to paradise” The opening is frenetic and confusing. All or Nothing is a strong, compassionate piece of work – and undoubtedly one of Leigh’s best – but it lacks the uncompromising clarity of its title..

It’s one of those moments when you’re grateful for Leigh’s capacity to stare his characters out; to let a scene outrun the point at which a scripted film would have called cut.There are too many other moments, though, that the film might have happily lost. You hope against hope that his interest in her is benign, but when he asks her to his place to watch a video, you know the kind what he has in mind.The exchange is handled with the most extraordinary subtlety: Sid is a dirty old man, but Leigh doesn’t allow that to negate his kindness Rachel reassesses her attempted seducer with dumb stoicism. While the Bassett maisonette is a place where her father cadges the contents of her piggy bank and her brother slouches on the sofa, Sid (Sam Kelly) is the gentlest presence in Rachel’s life; a soft-spoken middle-aged man who makes a quiet effort to befriend her, to make the tea breaks between rounds of urine-sluicing and vomit-mopping more pleasant. It details the relationship between Rachel and one of her colleagues at the cheerless care home in which she works. With all the work he and his cast have put into concocting these people, he can’t bear to turn them into swirls of celluloid in the cutting room bin.There is one subplot that comprises some of the most effective material. And the redundancy of some subsidiary characters – a subplot about a self-mutilating young man, particularly – illustrates some of the disadvantages of Leigh’s improvisational technique.

As Phil Bassett, a cash-strapped minicab driver from SE10, Spall gives what may be the performance of his career.He does it with the help of Lesley Manville (as his loveless wife, Penny), and of Alison Garland and James Corden (as his children, Rachel and Rory), but principally he is helped by his director, who allows us time to gaze on the unshaven flanks of Spall’s face, his dead eyes, the nihilistic dirtiness of his hair.When Leigh diverts his focus from Spall and his family, however, the film falters. His latest film, All or Nothing, is at its best when staring its characters straight in the face.
The face that receives most attention is that of Timothy Spall, who appears to crumple to nothing before the viewers’ eyes. Mike Leigh knows when not to flinch; when to keep the camera running. But this won’t undermine a film of gripping and memorable accomplishments.. A more enigmatic or ambiguous ending would have better suited its mood, and made us wonder what might issue from these damaged lives. (Or is their happiness to do with being a sufficient distance from middle age?)Ray Lawrence, who also directed the film of Peter Carey’s Bliss several years ago, waits and reveals with the timing of a good poker player, stumbling only once at the close with a montage that’s too pat and sentimental. His guilt, as Jane sees too clearly, would be hideously ironic, Nik being to all appearances a devoted father of three young children, and his relationship with Paula (Daniella Farinacci), as we can see, being the only decent advertisement for marriage in the whole picture.