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Exclusive: David Hare, one of the UK’s foremost playwrights and a double Oscar nominee, is in an unsparing mood about the state of UK politics. This comes as leaders of the country’s two major parties parry in the cut and thrust of the July 4 general election.

Hare’s view, he tells Breaking Baz, is that there is in fact not enough cut and thrust, what with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak going to the polls “because he’s as fed up with this government as the rest of us.”

The dramatist, director,and screenwriter tells me that the Tories are coming up daily with “harebrained” election promises while Labour, its chief opponent, “is trying to be sober, say nothing and do nothing.”

He fears, though, that Labour is taking up “a defensive crouch“ when it should be thrusting.

“Something always goes disastrously wrong unless you are active and on...

'Sorrell and Son' with H.B. Warner and Alice Joyce. 'Sorrell and Son' 1927 movie: Long thought lost, surprisingly effective father-love melodrama stars a superlative H.B. Warner Partially shot on location in England and produced independently by director Herbert Brenon at Joseph M. Schenck's United Artists, the 1927 Sorrell and Son is a skillful melodrama about paternal devotion in the face of both personal and social adversity. This long-thought-lost version of Warwick Deeping's 1925 bestseller benefits greatly from the veteran Brenon's assured direction, deservedly shortlisted in the first year of the Academy Awards.* Crucial to the film's effectiveness, however, is the portrayal of its central character, a war-scarred Englishman who sacrifices it all for the happiness of his son. Luckily, the London-born H.B. Warner, best remembered for playing Jesus Christ in another 1927 release, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, is the embodiment of honesty, selflessness, and devotion. Less is...

The 79-year-old actor on surviving cancer, why she chose not to have children and how she plans to bow out

Some people have it, some don't. Benedict Cumberbatch has it in spades. He's very attractive to watch, and that's because he can act – if you saw him standing still you might think him plain.

People assume I'm posh because I'm one of the acting dames. I grew up in Tottenham and didn't used to speak like I do now. The thing we dames really have in common is that we're all rather bossy, because you had to speak up for yourself in our day. If only I had the wonderful way of covering up my bossiness that Judi Dench has – it only seems to come out when she's making us all play games together.

My parents thought I was going to be a dancer, but at 12 I began to find...

The candlelit Sam Wannamaker theatre is on the same site as the Globe, where Arterton made her professional stage debut

Forget Quantum of Solace and Prince of Persia, Gemma Arterton is about to play the Duchess of Malfi in the inaugural production at the Shakespeare's Globe new indoor theatre, which is on the same site as the Globe.

The 350-seat Sam Wanamaker theatre – named after the Globe's founder – is the only recreation of an indoor Jacobean theatre in the UK and will be lit entirely by candles as it would have been in Shakespeare's day.

The Globe's artistic director Dominic Dromgoole has specified that the theatre will be used to showcase the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries. John Webster's revenge tragedy, last seen in London at the Old Vic with Globe regular Eve Best in the title role, will open in January with Dromgoole directing.

It means a return to...

Each week we ask a reader to tell us about where they go to watch films. Today, a former theatre-turned-cinema in Notting Hill

This week's Cine-files entry is by Aleona Krechetova. Follow her on Twitter or on her blog here.

Location

Near to London's famous antiques market on Portobello Road, the annual Notting Hill carnival, one of my favourite cinemas stands proudly in the middle of the high street, and a mere 50 metres away from Notting Hill Gate tube station. Be you a proud inhabitant of the "coloured houses neighbourhood", or a wandering tourist in search of the famous Blue Door, the Coronet will undeniably catch your attention.

Building

Initially starting off as a theatre in 1898, the Coronet was later converted into a cinema in the 1920s. Although fully equipped with state-of-the-art surround sound, it also retains its original theatre architecture, and is the perfect historical setting for film fanatics...

The 2010 L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award nominees were announced last night at The Autry National Center for the American West in Griffith Park. Several winners of last year's Ovation Awards, including Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith, presented the 2010 nominations. The Theatre at Boston Court was the most highly nominated theater company, garnering 17 nods. Among the company's nominated productions are "Oedipus el Rey" and "The Twentieth Century Way."Center Theatre Group followed closely behind with 16 nominations, while the Geffen Playhouse took 12. The brand-new "Ovation Honors," a series of awards recognizing theater excellence outside of the standard categories, have been given out for the first time this year. Ovations Honors awardees include "The Who's Tommy" for video design and "The Gogol Project" for music composition for a play.   The complete list of nominees is as follows:Best SeasonCabrillo Music Theatre"The Andrews Brothers""Cinderella""Guys and Dolls""Little Shop of Horrors...

A talented Irish actor on stage and in films for Ford and Huston

For an actor who worked with two of the greatest movie directors of the last century and appeared in the world premieres of plays by Brian Friel, Ireland's leading contemporary dramatist, Donal Donnelly, who has died after a long illness, aged 78, was curiously unrecognised. Like so many prominent Irish actors in the diasporas of Hollywood, British television, the West End and Broadway – all areas he conquered – Donnelly was a great talent and a private citizen, happily married for many years, and always seemed youthful.

There was something mischievous, something larkish, about him, too. He twinkled. And he had a big nose. He had long lived in New York, although he died in Chicago, and had started out in Dublin, although born in England.

In John Huston's swansong movie The Dead (1987), the best screen transcription of a James Joyce fiction,...

No 78: Edmund Gwenn 1877-1959

He was born Edmund Kellaway in Wandsworth, London (or possibly the Vale of Glamorgan), grew to be 5ft 4in, was described over the years as "endearing", "cherubic", "portly", "elfin", with "a twinkle in his eye" and a seductively "soothing voice". All these attributes contributed to his appearance as Kris Kringle, the New York department store Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) who believes he's Father Christmas and convinces a Manhattan court to agree with him.

This brought him an Oscar as best supporting actor and a kind of immortality. In 1951, he was nominated for a similar role in Mister 880 as a sweet-natured counterfeiter who only forges dollar bills when he needs them. But there's much more to Gwenn than this.

Gwenn's stern Victorian father kicked him out of the house for wanting to go on the stage and he travelled around England and...