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Helen Mirren was named best actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The Audience" at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards on Sunday while the best actor award was split between Rory Kinnear and Adrian Lester as the leads in "Othello".
The award for best play on the London stage went to Lucy Kirkwood for "Chimerica," an exploration of the relationship between the United States and China as seen through the eyes of an American photojournalist trying to track down a young protester who faced down a tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
A revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along", a flop on Broadway in 1981, was named best musical while Richard Eyre won best director for a revival of Ibsen's "Ghosts".
Mirren, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in Steven Frears's movie "The Queen," said she feels such awards are being given to the queen as much as to her.
“I’ve always felt playing her majesty that it’s actually her majesty who’s winning the award and not me,” Mirren said.
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American Patty Griffin brought her resonant, mournful, soulful voice to London on Sunday, singing "Meet me on the banks of the Ohio" just a stone's throw from the Thames in a sign of country music's growing footprint in Britain.
The scene, seemingly an incongruous one for an American country music star, was the Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre, not far from Buckingham Palace.
But the standing ovation at the end of Griffin's concert, not to mention the foot-stomping and hand-slapping throughout, testified to her tremendous talent as both singer and song-writer, and to something broader: the surprising popularity of American country music in the United Kingdom.
The genre has had a dedicated following in the British Isles for years but it seems to be growing, especially over the last decade. The evidence is anecdotal but ubiquitous.
Associated Press
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
Talk-show host Larry King is 80. Talk-show host Dick Cavett is 77. Media mogul Ted Turner is 75. Actor Dan Haggerty is 72. Fashion designer Calvin Klein is 71. Sportscaster Ahmad Rashad is 64. Actor Robert Beltran ("Star Trek: Voyager") is 60. Actress Kathleen Quinlan is 59. Actress Glynnis O'Connor is 58. Journalist Ann Curry is 57. Actress Allison Janney is 54. Drummer Matt Sorum of Velvet Revolver (and Guns N' Roses) is 53. Actress Meg Ryan is 52. Actress Jodie Foster is 51. Drummer Travis McNabb (Better Than Ezra) is 44. Singer Tony Rich is 42. Singer Jason Albert of Heartland is 40. Country singer Billy Currington is 40. Dancer-choreographer Savion Glover is 40. Singer Tamika Scott of Xscape is 38. Rapper Lil' Mo is 36. Actor Adam Driver ("Girls") is 30.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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