Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Directed by Mike Leigh
For nearly a decade, Gilbert and Sullivan’s collaborations have delighted the English people. But in 1884, as a London heat wave cuts into the theater trade, their latest work, "Princess Ida", receives lukewarm press. In an effort to reconcile their creative differences and drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, they went on to create the hit opera "The Mikado", one of the duo's greatest successes.
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What critics compared Topsy-Turvy to
Cusack employs a rather obtuse “period” accent to mouth the “literate” dialogue of hack screenwriters Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare (!), which is even worse than the cornball flowery speech Mike Leigh used in Topsy-Turvy.
Shirley Henderson ("Topsy-Turvy," "Bridget Jones's Diary"), her voice sounding like she's inhaled a very British type of helium, joins the cast as Moaning Myrtle, a pigtailed ghost who lurks in the girls' bathroom.
Stuart Craig, who was nominated for an Oscar for "Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone," returns as production designer; Lindy Hemming (who won an Academy Award for "Topsy-Turvy") created the costumes; and the special effects were stunningly designed by Jim Mitchell, Nick Davis and John Richardson.
What's extremely cool about Vera Drake is that director Mike Leigh ( Topsy-Turvy ) kept it a secret from the rest of the cast -- the actors playing Vera's husband and grown children -- just exactly what Vera has been up to all these years, so that when she finally and inevitably gets caught, they're really actually stunned.
After the Rehearsal isn't attempting anything like the full canvas of theatrical labor and superstructure that you find in, say, Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy , but nonetheless, its status as an absorbing, life-defining occupation is just as foregrounded in After the Rehearsal as are the more surreal industries of the Kaufman film.
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Striking out on his own, he follows Claire back to her lair, which turns out to sport a morose and moribund husband named Andy (Timothy Spall of Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy) and yet another broodling.