Backbeat Biogs
CAST
Isabella Calthorpe – Astrid Kirchherr
Isabella trained at LAMDA. Theatre credits include Lisa Housemann in the original London cast of Dirty Dancing (Aldwych), The Voysey Inheritance (National Theatre) and The Importance of Being Ernest (York Theatre Royal). TV credits include Trinity (ITV2), Harley Street (ITV) and Inspector Linley (BBC). Film credits include 13 Hours; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; Blooded and Stage Beauty.
Andrew Knott - John Lennon
Andrew’s theatre credits include The History Boys (National Theatre & world tour), Ruling Passion (Dancehouse) and Tale of Two Cities (Green Room). TV credits include Gavin and Stacey, Spooks Code 9, Life On Mars and Drop Dead Gorgeous (BBC), Where the Heart Is, Lewis, The Ward and Emmerdale (ITV). Film credits include Black Beauty and The Secret Garden (Warner Bros), The History Boys (Fox Searchlight/BBC), The Prey and Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.
Alex Robertson - Stuart Sutcliffe
Alex trained at RADA. Theatre credits include Artist Descending A Staircase (LeNez Productions), Orestes (Shared Experience), By Parties Unknown (Sincera), Woman In Mind (Salisbury Playhouse), The School For Wives (Southampton Nuffield Theatre), Bear Hug (Royal Court) and The Soldier (Edinburgh Festival). TV credits include Fanny Hill (BBC), Wide Sargasso Sea (Kudos for BBC), The Quatermass Experiment (BBC) and Vernon (BBC). Radio credits include Armadale (Pacificus for Radio 4).
Oliver Bennett - Pete Best
Oliver recently graduated from RADA. Theatre while training includes Motortown, Rookery Nook and Poppy. Theatre credits include Avocado (Kings Head) and To the End of the World and Abigail’s Party (Warwick Arts Centre & Edinburgh Festival).
Jamie Blackley- George Harrison
Jamie’s theatre credits include Spring Awakening (Lyric Hammersmith and Novello). TV credits include Misfits (E4), Apparitions (Lime Pictures/BBC) and Doctors, Casualty and Myths (BBC). Film credits include The Strays; London Boulevard and London Dreams.
Giovanna Falcone - Prostitute, Ensemble
Giovanna graduated from Rose Bruford in 2006. Theatre includes: understudy Sasha in Ivanov (Donmar at the Wyndham’s); Peggy Brown in Call on the Zimmer (Skylo Theatre) and Arabella in Tis Pity She’s a Whore (The Globe). Television includes: The Savages. Film includes: The Boat That Rocked and How Was Your Weekend?. Short films include: One Girl; Spin and Be Mine.
Victoria Fischer - Ensemble
Victoria graduated from the Oxford School of Drama in August 2009. Theatre whilst training includes: Phaedra in Phaedra’s Love; The Art of Success; Rosalind in As You Like It (Blenheim Palace) and Terrorism (Hampstead Theatre). Victoria is making her professional debut in Backbeat.
Daniel Healy - Paul McCartney
Daniel won a Scholarship to train at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts and is currently living and studying in London. Film and TV credits include Daddy’s Girl (Cannes Best Short Film), Taggart, Chewin the Fat, The Karen Dunbar Show and the Irvine Welsh film Wedding Belles. Daniel is also a gifted singer/songwriter. He plays Guitar, Bass, Keyboard and Drums and has performed with various bands all over the UK.
Kate Hodgson - Cynthia Lennon
Kate trained at the prestigious Italia Conti School of Acting. She trained in singing (soprano) and dance including: Meringue; Jive; Scottish two-step; Waltz; Tango and Salsa. Television includes: Hollyoaks (Lime Pictures) and Open University (BBC). Commercials and corporate work includes: Iceland; Jet2.com; Co-op; JJB and ASDA. She plays both acoustic and electric guitar, is trained in Kick Boxing and is experienced in physical theatre.
Paddy Lannigan – Bruno Koschmeider, Paolozzi
Patrick Lannigan trained as a musician and played with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Theatre credits include the title role in The Double Bass (Triskell Theatre Cork), Beating Time (Broadway Lewisham), Genius Unleashed, Tango!Tango! and Inherit the Wind (Old Vic). Patrick has played with artistes including Leonard Bernstein, Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Jackson and Dizzee Rascal and he has played on numerous soundtracks including James Bond; Harry Potter and the films of Pedro Almoldovar.
Justin McDonald – Klaus Voormann
Justin trained at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. Theatre credits include Nina in the Morning (Young Vic), Days of Hope (Landor) and The Zoo Story (Tripod Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe). TV credits include George Gently: Gently Through The Mill, Torchwood, Doctors, Holby City, Casualty (BBC), Afterlife, Distant Shores (ITV) and The Bill (Thames). Film credits include And When Did You Last See Your Father? (Film4), Miss Potter (Momentum Pictures) and The Vampire Diary (Widestream Films).
Robert Reina – Bert Kaempfert, Arthur Ballard
Robert’s theatre credits include Quartermaine’s Terms (Farnham Rep), Songs of Grace and Redemption (Theatre 503), Michael in Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Complex Theatre, LA), The Tempest (Kent Rep), Voices of the Fallen (New End), Out of Order (Devonshire Park) and The Mousetrap (European Tour). TV credits include Doctors, A Touch of Frost, We Can Make You Talk, Bella Bettien (Holland), Cuthbert, Britain Behaving Badly; Casualty; EastEnders, That’s English (Spain) and An Ungentlemanly Act.
Iris Roberts – Magda, Club Singer
Iris’ theatre credits include After the Flood, Cell Begat Cell and Thinking the Deep Thoughts (Old Vic Symposium), Pete Townsend’s Quadrophenia (UK tour), The 24 Hour Plays 2009: These Memories Must Go (Old Vic) and Eric’s and Everyword Festival 2008 (Liverpool Everyman). TV credits include Doctors (BBC). Workshops include Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies and Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Proper Clever. Iris was awarded Highly Commended Female Actor 2008 at the Spotlight Prize.
Charles Swift - Understudy John, Paul, Stu and George
Charles recently graduated from the Manchester School of Theatre. Theatre while training includes: Burleigh in Mary Stuart; Mr Gradgrind in Hard Times; Artie Shaughnessy in The House of Blue Leaves; Gloucester in King Lear and Angelo in Measure for Measure. Radio includes: You Are a Gongedip (BBC Radio 4) and Nina Black (BBC Radio 3). A talented musician, Charles plays guitar, bass, piano and drums as well as being an accomplished baritone singer.
PRODUCTION
Iain Softley - Director and Writer
Softley graduated from Cambridge University where he directed a number of acclaimed theatre productions and then began his career working for the BBC’s documentary team in the 1980s.
He earned widespread acclaim in 1994 for his feature film directorial debut, Backbeat, which chronicled the early days of The Beatles with original band member Stu Sutcliffe. The film earned a BAFTA Award nomination for Best British Film and brought Softley a London Film Critics Circle and Empire Award for Best British Newcomer.
The following year he helmed the imaginative teen computer film Hackers starring Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie in her feature film debut. Softley went on to direct the period drama The Wings of the Dove, based on the Henry James novel and starring Helena Bonham Carter and Linus Roache. The film earned a number of awards and award nominations, including 4 Academy Award nominations and multiple acting honors for Bonham Carter.
Softley’s next film was the sci-fi drama K-PAX starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Next he directed and produced the Louisiana set supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key starring Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard and John Hurt.
Softley’s latest film, which he also produced and directed, was the family fantasy Inkheart starring Brendan Fraser, Helen Mirren, Paul Bettany and Jim Broadbent.
His next film project is his own adaptation of Sebastien Japrisot’s (A Very Long Engagement) Trap for Cinderella, a sexy thriller set in Paris and the south of France.
Stephen Jeffreys - Co-Adaptor
Stephen is an internationally acclaimed playwright. Theatre includes: Valued Friends (Hampstead Theatre, 1989), winner of the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright; The Clink (Paines Plough, 1990), for whom he was Arts Council Writer in Residence from 1987-1989; The Libertine (Royal Court, 1995 and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, 1996, directed by Terry Johnson and starring John Malkovich); A Jovial Crew (RSC); A Going Concern (Hampstead); I Just Stopped By to See the Man (Royal Court); Lost Land (Steppenwolf); The Art of War (Sydney Theatre Company) and Bugles at the Gates of Jalalabad (Tricycle). Stephen’s screenplay version of The Libertine was released in 2005, and he is currently writing feature films for Ecosse and Fortune Films.
Karl Sydow - Producer Backbeat On Stage Ltd
Karl has produced/co-produced: The Line by Timberlake Wertenbaker; The Seagull and American Buffalo (Broadway); Happy Days starring Fiona Shaw and directed by Deborah Warner (Brooklyn Academy of Music); Jenufa by Timberlake Wertenbaker directed by Irina Brown (Arcola); Ring Round The Moon directed by Sean Mathias (Playhouse); Dirty Dancing (Aldwych); Sinatra at the London Palladium the spectacular multimedia production directed by David Leveaux with choreography by Stephen Mear; And Then There Were None with Tara Fitzgerald (Gielgud); Dance of Death with Sir Ian McKellen, Frances de la Tour and Owen Teale (London and Sydney); Bea Arthur (Savoy); Auntie and Me, with Alan Davies and Margaret Tyzack (Wyndham’s); Michael Moore, Live! (Roundhouse); the West End premiere of Noel Coward’s Semi Monde; Kevin Elyot’s Mouth to Mouth with Lindsay Duncan and Michael Maloney (Albery); David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow with Mark Strong, Patrick Marber and Kimberly Williams; Drummers by Simon Bennet and Some Explicit Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill (winner of the Evening Standard Award as Most Promising Newcomer) both directed by Max Stafford-Clark (Out of Joint); Macbeth with Rufus Sewell (Queens); A Swell Party, a celebration of Cole Porter (Vaudeville); Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good (nominated for six Tony Awards and received the Olivier Award for Best Play and the New York Critics’ Award for Best Foreign Play); Hysteria (Best Comedy, Olivier Awards), and an adaptation of Sue Townsend’s novel The Queen and I which was Out of Joint’s inaugural production.
Karl continues to serve on the board of Out of Joint, the UK leading producer of new writing for the theatre. Karl also served as a director of Renaissance Film Company. He continues to act as an independent film producer. Projects with David Parfitt, his colleague from Renaissance include A Bunch of Amateurs by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman featuring Derek Jacobi, Imelda Staunton, Samantha Bond and Burt Reynolds.
Christopher Oram - Set and Costume Designer
Theatre includes: A Streetcar Named Desire, Grand Hotel and the Evening Standard Award for Best Design for Caligula (Donmar Warehouse); Hamlet, Madame De Sade, Twelth Night and Ivanov (Donmar at the Wyndham’s Theatre); Parade (Donmar and Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles); Fat Pig (Trafalgar Studios); How To Curse (Bush); Frost/Nixon (Donmar, Gielgud and Broadway); King Lear and The Seagull (RSC); Macbeth (Almeida); Critics’ Circle Award for Best Design for Suddenly Last Summer (Crucible Theatre Sheffield and Noel Coward); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Crucible, Sheffield) and Olivier Award for Best Costume Design for Power (Cottesloe, National Theatre). Film includes: Costume Design for Kenneth Branagh’s Magic Flute.
Howard Harrison - Lighting Designer
Theatre includes: Romeo & Juliet (RSC); Inherit the Wind and Complicit (Old Vic); Grasses of a Thousand Colours (Royal Court); Hay Fever, House of Special Purpose, The Crucible and The Music Man (Chichester); King Lear (Young Vic); Creditors (Donmar); Mary Poppins (Tony nominated - West End, Broadway and UK and US tours); MAMMA MIA! (Worldwide); Macbeth (Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design and Tony nomination - West End and Broadway); Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll (West End and Broadway); Glengarry Glen Ross, Love Song, Guys and Doll; Donkey’s Years and Heroes (West End); In A Dark House and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Almeida) and Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! and Edward Scissorhands (Sadler’s Wells, UK and US tours). Opera and Dance includes: Il Travatore, Aida, I Masnadieri and Othello (Royal Opera); The Merry Widow (ENO); Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet (English National Ballet) and The Makropulos Case and Nabucco (Metropolitan Opera).
Paul Groothuis - Sound Designer
A member of the National Theatre from 1984 until 2001, productions included: Habit of Art; Rafta Rafta; The Rose Tattoo; The Royal Hunt of the Sun; The House of Bernarda Alba; His Dark Materials; Buried Child; Stuff Happens; Edmond; A Streetcar Named Desire; The Coast of Utopia; The Wind in the Willows; The Night of the Iguana; Under Milk Wood; Summerfolk; The Cherry Orchard; Sunday in the Park With George; Sweeney Todd; A Little Night Music; Lady in the Dark; Guys and Dolls; Candide; South Pacific; Oklahoma!; My Fair Lady (UK and US tours) and Anything Goes. West End: Porgy and Bess; The Sea; The Country Wife; Marguerite (and Japan); Bad Girls the Musical; Acorn Antiques; Endgame; Bent; Waiting for Godot; Breakfast at Tiffany’s; Light in the Piazza; Oliver!; Gone with the Wind; Parlour Song; Marianne Dreams; Mary Poppins and Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker!, Highland Fling, Edward Scissorhands, Carman and Dorian Gray. Future projects: Mary Poppins (Holland) and All My Sons (London). Paul is a visiting lecturer at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.
Timothy Bird - Projection Designer
Timothy is a designer and director combining the worlds of moving image with theatrical story telling. Credits include: the direction and design of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; set and costume design for The Lavender Hill Mob and set and projection design of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Timothy (projection design) and David Farley (set and costume) collaborated on the design of the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Sunday in the Park with George which transferred to the West End and Broadway (Timothy and David were jointly awarded the Critics’ Circle Design Award, Evening Standard Theatre Design Award, Olivier Award for Best Design, Outer Critics’ Circle Design Award, Drama Desk Award and a Tony Nomination for Best Design of a Musical). Behind the scenes it is the team at ‘Knifedge: the Creative Network’ (multi award-winning creative production company) which makes Timothy’s theatrical projection work possible.
Nikki Woollaston - Choreographer
Nikki trained under Jackie Mitchell and Donald McLennan at The London Studio Centre and is Assistant to the Head of Jazz at Millennium Dance 2000.
Choreographic and Musical Staging credits include: Oklahoma! directed by John Doyle (Chichester); Wuthering Heights for Tamasha Theatre Company ( Lyric Hammersmith); Marguerite (Theatre Royal Haymarket and Japan); Kismet (English National Opera); The King And I (UK tour); Nymph Errant (Chichester); The Vivien Ellis Awards (Her Majesty’s) and Dick Whittington, Cinderella, Aladdin and Jack and the Beanstalk (Watford Palace). Associate and Resident Choreographer credits include: Oliver! (London Palladium); Cats (New London); Anything Goes (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and National Theatre); On The Town (English National Opera and Chatelet Paris) and Sinatra (London Palladium and UK tour). Nikki also worked as part of the choreographic team on the Manchester Commonwealth Games 2002 opening and closing ceremonies.
Dan Hubbard - Casting Director
Dan Hubbard has been working in casting for over 15 years. Film includes: Harry Brown; The Hurt Locker; Inkheart; United 93; The Bourne Ultimatum; King Kong; The Bourne Supremacy; Tombraider 1 & 2; The Damned United; The Fall (Tarsem Singh); The Jury (Peter Morgan); Dean Spanley; Battle Of Haditha; A Good Woman and Evita (starring Madonna). Television includes: the upcoming Ben Hur (2 x part mini-series); Northanger Abbey; Omagh; The Murder Of Stephen Lawrence; The Jury (Peter Morgan); Born & Bred; Planespotting and Ahead Of The Class (starring Julie Walters). Awaiting release is Paul Greengrass’s Greenzone starring Matt Damon and John Landis’s Burke & Hare starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson & Isla Fisher. Backbeat is Dan’s first credit for the theatre.
Annabel Bolton - Associate Director
Most recently Annabel was a director for The 24 Hour Celebrity Gala at the Old Vic Theatre, London. She also recently worked as Associate Director for Matthew Warchus on his production of Norman Conquests (Old Vic and Broadway). Previous work as Associate Director: Complicit for Kevin Spacey and Speed the Plow for Mathew Warchus (Old Vic). Previous work as Assistant Director: Speed The Plow (Old Vic); Lord of the Rings (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) and Stones in his Pockets (UK tour). Prior to directing, Annabel worked in Stage Management and as a Company Stage Manager. Productions include: Macbeth (Gielgud); The Last Confession (Theatre Royal, Haymarket); 24 Hour Celebrity Gala (Old Vic); Eh Joe (Old Vic); Elton John’s Caberet (Old Vic) and productions at the English Theatre Hamburg.
Richard Kent - Associate Set Designer
Richard trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, graduating in 2007. He has worked with Christopher Oram first as Assistant then as Associate on productions including: Ivanov; Twelfth Night; Madame De Sade (Donmar Wyndhams Season); A View from the Bridge; (Duke of Yorks and UK Tour); Hamlet; (West End, Elsinore Denmark and Broadway); A Streetcar Named Desire; Red (Donmar Warehouse) and Parade (Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles). Richard continues to work with Christopher Oram on upcoming productions including: Billy Budd (Glyndebourne); Dantons Death (National Theatre); Madame Butterfly (Houston Grand Opera); Don Giovani (Metropolitan Opera House) and Passion (Donmar Warehouse). Richards other work includes: costumes for Robin Hood (Spike Theatre Liverpool); Designs for Ramesh Meyyappan’s Gin and Tonic and Passing Trains (Tramway, Glasgow and International Tour) and Roscoe’s Garden; an entrant into the 2008 Chelsea Flower Show (Silver Medal).
Patrick Molony - Production Manager
Recent productions include: Speaking in Tongues (Duke of York’s); Spring Awakening (Lyric and Novello); Waiting for Godot (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Entertaining Mr Sloane (Trafalgar Studios); Hamlet, Madame De Sade, Twelfth Night, Ivanov (Donmar Warehouse, Wyndham’s); Boeing-Boeing (Comedy); Zorro (Garrick); The Lovers and The Collection (Comedy); Othello (Donmar); Nicholas Nickleby (Gielgud); Last Confession (Haymarket); Absurdia (Donmar); Midsummer Nights Dream (Roundhouse, RSC); Betrayal (Donmar); Frost/Nixon (Donmar, Gielgud and Broadway ); Don Juan in Soho (Donmar); Bent (Trafalgar Studios); Donkeys’ Years (Comedy); The Cut (Donmar); The Play’s The Thing (Ambassadors); Mack and Mabel (Criterion); Blackbird (Albery); As You Desire Me (Playhouse); Far Pavilions (Shaftesbury); Epitaph For George Dillon (Comedy); Mary Stuart (Donmar and Apollo); Don Carlos (Gielgud); The Philanthropist (Donmar); Thoroughly Modern Millie (Shaftesbury); Saturday Night Fever (Apollo Victoria); Grand Hotel (Donmar); Suddenly Last Summer (Albery); The Tempest (Old Vic); Private Lives (Albery) and Stones In His Pockets (West End and Broadway).
