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| Ian has been
a professional actor since he was twelve and
won a scholarship to RADA
at the age of sixteen.
He acted with the Royal Shakespeare
Company for three years, has appeared
often in the West End and toured extensively.
His many TV appearances include four years
as D.C. Skinner in Z Cars.
In 1998 he created the role of Angus Hart
in the C5 soap Family Affairs
and played him for two years.
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His most recent appearances
have been in Harbour Lights, Badger, both
for the BBC, and the film Gabriel
and Me with Billy Connolly.
You can see the trailer for Ians' latest film,
Paladin - dawn of the dragon slayer
here.
He has written more than forty scripts for
radio, television, film and theatre. Ian can
be seen each Christmas at Hatchlands Music
Museum in Guildford where he provides the
words in the annual Christmas concerts performed
by words & music group, Ayres
& Graces.
In addition to his professional activities
Ian is in demand as a theatre director and
teacher. He is Artistic Director for The Surrey
Heath Young Actors’ Company and teaches
acting in several schools and colleges. He
has performed his ‘Living Shakespeare’
in Paris, Hamburg, New York and throughout
the U.K.
"I was classically trained
as an actor at one of the best drama schools
in the world. I have attended classes and
taught all over the world. Ian Cullen taught
me so many things the experts failed to teach
me. Absolutely enlightening, utterly useful
and fascinating."
Steven Morley )
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| Living
Shakespeare (Devised and presented by Ian Cullen)
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Shakespeare and his fellow actors were expected
to perform on demand and at short notice a
play they may have not looked at for months
or years. As an aide memoir he hid clues in
the layout and punctuation of his scripts.
These hidden guidelines also enabled new plays
to be staged with very little rehearsal.
The clues have been handed down through successive
generations of professional actors and formed
the basis for Sir Harley Granville-Barker’s
definitive “Prefaces to Shakespeare.
With audience participation “Living
Shakespeare” explains Shakespeare’s
end word discipline. His reasons for changing
from prose to verse and back again. How he
used alliteration, tongue twisters and other
verbal conceits to guide his actors. Mid-line
full stops, colons, semi-colons and commas,
hard or soft words long and short words, unexpected
verbosity, terse dialogue, half lines, spread
dialogue and perfect or fractured iambic pentameters
all play their part.
The workshop is guaranteed to make Shakespeare
more accessible and enjoyable and prepares
the way for participants to perform selected
scenes before an invited audience. |
Yvonne trained as an
actress at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
then after early experience in repertory joined
the National Theatre Company which was at that
time under the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier.
She appeared many times, most notably in The
Three Sisters, Much Ado About
Nothing and a play by Beatle John Lennon,
In His Own Write. |
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Her many TV appearances include
the play In Two Minds, directed
by Kenneth Loach, and Hassan
in which she starred as Yasmin with co-stars Sir
Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud.
She went on to to appear in The Collector,
the inaugral production at the now renowned Bush
Theatre in London, and took part in many national
theatre tours including The Anniversary,
A Christmas Carol and the famous
thriller Something To Hide.
Her films have included Tam Lin,
with Ava Gardner, Flower in the Park,
The Cherry Picker, Multiplication
and The Golden Dolphin.
For the past twenty five years she has devoted
much of her time to teaching drama at St. Catherine’s
School For Girls, Farnborough Hill and other schools
or colleges.
In 1982 she was a founding director of the acclaimed
Surrey Heath Young Actors’ Company,
based in Camberley, for whom she still runs Saturday
morning drama workshops for young people, as well
as directing or assisting with SHYAC productions.
Yvonne was also a founder member for the well
known words and music consort group Ayres
and Graces whose annual Christmas concerts
at the music museum Hatchlands Park have sold
out each year since 1990.
She recently played Queen Victoria at Osborne
House, Himley Hall near Birmingham and other venues
in Dear and Gracious Lady. She appears regularly
in Images of the River, (a journey in words and
song along the River Thames), A Tudor Gallery
and other Ayres and Graces programmes.
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