Theatre News

Andrew Scott, Pearl Mackie and Amanda Abbington take part in Almeida's Figures of Speech series

The series champions powerful speeches throughout history

Andrew Scott, Pearl Mackie and Amanda Abbington
Andrew Scott, Pearl Mackie and Amanda Abbington
© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage

A new series of the Almeida's Figures of Speech digital short videos will be released over the next few weeks.

Celebrating and featuring some of the greatest speeches in the 21st century, the series will include performances from Andrew Scott, Amanda Abbington, Pearl Mackie, Tobias Menzies and Iwan Rheon.

You can see the first video, in which Edith Sampson's 'One of Five' speech is performed by Andrew Scott, below. Sampson was the first black woman to be elected judge in the United States, and the first African-American appointed as a US delegate to the United Nations.

The videos will be released on the Almeida's site and across social media across the three weeks.

The project launched in May 2017 and the first two series have featured speeches delivered
by American politician Harvey Milk spoken by Ian McKellen, Virginia Woolf spoken by Fiona
Shaw, Malcolm X spoken by Cush Jumbo, and American aviator Charles Lindbergh spoken
by Russell Tovey.

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