A Bunch of Amateurs (2019)
Keen to boost his flagging career, fading Hollywood action hero Jefferson Steele arrives in England to play King Lear in Stratford – only to find that this is not the birthplace of the Bard, but a sleepy Suffolk village. And instead of Sir Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi Dench, the cast are a bunch of amateurs trying to save their theatre from developers. Jefferson’s monstrous ego, vanity and insecurity are tested to the limit by the enthusiastic am-dram thespians. As acting worlds collide and Jefferson’s career implodes, he discovers some truths about himself – along with his inner Lear!
Ian Hislop (editor of Private Eye, star of BBCTV’s ‘Have I got News for You’) and cartoonist Nick Newman first wrote ‘A Bunch of Amateurs’ as a film. The stage play is a little more recent and was first seen at the Watermill, Newbury in 2014.