Gossip

Pitmen Paints Bio Picture of Casanova???

| London's West End |

3 February 2009

Which of you all-round culture vultures have been paying attention? Ian Kelly, one of the leading actors in Lee Hall’s award-winning play The Pitmen Painters – which has just been nominated for the Olivier for Best New Play, adding to its Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice nomination and Evening Standard win – is a winner himself. When he’s not appearing on stage, Kelly is also a historian and author, and his biography of legendary lover Casanova won the title of Sunday Times Biography of the Year for 2008.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 4 February) at 6pm, Kelly will give a Platform talk at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre about his book, unveiling Casanova as a very different man from the legendary lover. Drawing on his acclaimed book, Kelly captures the theatricality of Casanova and his times, revealing an astonishingly modern way of looking at life, love… and food! The Platform is chaired by Matthew Fort, food and drink editor of the Guardian.

After the Platform, Kelly will hightail it backstage to get into costume for the evening performance of The Pitmen Painters in the Lyttelton. It’s just returned for an extended season in the NT’s second-largest auditorium after its limited run last year in the smaller NT Cottesloe.