BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Cressida Bonas's big break as tragic model Bambi in a major ITV drama
Cressida Bonas at the 71st British Academy Film Awards
Socialite turned serious actress Cressida Bonas will portray Sheila Caffell, a professional model known as Bambi who was slain along with her parents and twin sons by her brother, in a major television drama.
The role in the six-part ITV series is an important break for Ms Bonas who, for a time, was dismissed as just a former flame of Prince Harry’s.
Bonas, 29, who studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and has taken on roles in several off-West End plays, has had to work twice as hard as many other aspiring actresses to prove to producers and casting directors she has the chops to take on top parts.
She will appear opposite Freddie Fox in The White House Farm Murders. As this page revealed last week, Fox has been cast as Jeremy Bamber, the convicted killer who massacred five members of his family in Essex 33 years ago.
Bamber was sentenced to five life terms for murdering his adoptive parents June and Neville Bamber, adoptive sister Sheila, and her six-year-old sons Nicholas and Daniel.
Initially, police suspected that Sheila, who suffered from mental illness, had committed the shootings and then turned a gun on herself. This theory was soon dispelled and the murder squad switched its attention to Bamber.
Cressida Bonas will play Sheila Caffell, a professional model known as Bambi who was slain along with her parents and twin sons by her brother
Each of the episodes written by Kris Mrksa will look at what took place at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy from the viewpoint of a different character, including Bamber, Sheila, and her former husband, who will be portrayed by Mark Stanley — so good opposite Ruth Wilson in director Clio Barnard’s film Dark River.
Why it'll be misty in the West End this autumn
Arin z É Kene is going to play Misty again. No, not the old 1971 Clint Eastwood movie Play Misty For Me. But Kene’s own play, Misty, which he performed at the Bush, in West London, this past spring.
It’s a superbly lyrical piece on identity and, he joked, ‘what it is to be a playwright who looks and sounds like me’.
The show will move into the Trafalgar Studios from September 8 with a first night on September 13.
Misty, with Kene centre stage, features music, singing, acting ... and big balloons. The actor and writer said he and director Omar Elerian tweaked the piece every night of its run in West London.
Arin z É Kene stars in his own play Misty in the West End at the Trafalgar Studios
‘We’re still not done with it,’ he told me from Dorset, where he was holed up working on a screen - play, before heading off to the Dominican Repub - lic to join Tamara Lawrance, Hayley Atwell and JackLowden in a three-part BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy’s novel The Long Song, about a slave on a sugar plantation in 19thcentury Jamaica.
The audience at the Bush reflected the culturally diverse play. ‘ Every night, there were people from all backgrounds,’ said Kene, who was brought up in Hackney by his Nigerianborn parents.
He revealed one of the negotiating points over the transfer was to ensure there would be plenty of affordable seats. So there will be £15 seats — and some more expensive tickets, too. They go on sale today.
The King and I
The King And I, directed by Bartlett Sher and featuring brilliant Broadway star Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe, is breathtaking at the London Palladium.
And its producers are whistling a happy tune, after it broke the record for biggest grossing week in the Palladium’s history: taking £1,032,162.
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