Richard Laxton Movies

In 1975, John Hurt starred in a BBC television adaptation of Quentin Crisp's autobiography The Naked Civil Servant, playing the flamboyantly gay author and actor, and in 2009 Hurt revisits the role in this comedy-drama based on the latter years of Crisp's life. Crisp rose to fame in the UK following the publication of his memoirs and the success of a one-man show, but when a series of typically frank but witty quips during an interview lead to a public scandal, Crisp is approached by an American talent agent, Connie Clausen (Swoosie Kurtz), who says she can get him work in the United States. Crisp relocates to New York City, where he stages a show entitled "How To Be Happy" and gains a new audience. However, the high camp of Crisp's persona and his habit of making deliberately provocative statements (such as calling AIDS "a fad" and calling homosexuality "a terrible disease") earns him the enmity of some gay activists and causes the show to close prematurely. Clausen arranges for Crisp to meet Phillip Steele (Denis O'Hare), the publisher of the Village Voice, and Steele offers Crisp a job as the paper's new film critic. Crisp's witty and acerbic commentary on new movies wins him a new fan base and he and Steele become close friends, but as age and broken relationships begin to take their toll on Crisp, he returns to the stage in a new show created in collaboration with performance artist Penny Arcade (Cynthia Nixon). An Englishman In New York received its world premiere at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival; the film takes its title from a song by Sting, who struck up a friendship with Crisp when they both appeared in the movie The Bride. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

 

Thomas Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) is a detective inspector with Scotland Yard; he's also the eighth Earl of Asherton, and his mixture of upper-class refinement, private-school affectations, and steel-nerved street smarts set the stage for this made-for-TV mystery based on the novel by Elizabeth George. A farmer is found decapitated in York, and Lynley and his new partner, Sgt. Barbara Havers (Sharon Small), are sent in to investigate. The farmer's reclusive daughter immediately confesses to the crime, but Lynley has a hunch there's more to the crime than she's telling him. He discovers there are more than a few people who would stand to gain a great deal from the farmer's death. While Lynley struggles to get to the bottom of the case, he soon finds himself butting heads with Sgt. Havers; she's as much a part of the working class as he is entrenched in blue-blood society, and initially they blend like chalk and cheese until she gets to know the man behind the pretentious facade. Originally produced for British television, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Great Deliverance was aired in the United States as part of the PBS anthology series Mystery! ~ Mark Deming, Rovi