https://wikimili.com/en/Cell_Mates_(play)
Cell Mates (play)
Cell Mates is a play by Simon Gray. It opened at the Albery Theatre, London on 16 February 1995, starring Stephen Fry and Rik Mayall, with Gray himself directing. Despite having performed successfully for several weeks during the pre-London warm-up dates in Guildford and Watford then at the Richmond Theatre, Fry left the West End production after three days. His understudy, Mark Anderson, stepped in, until Fry was replaced by Simon Ward. Nevertheless, the production closed on 25 March 1995.
Later in 1995, Gray released an autobiographical account of the production, called Fat Chance. It was published by Faber and Faber.
The play was revived at the Hampstead Theatre in December 2017, in a new production directed by Edward Hall and starring Geoffrey Streatfeild as George Blake.
Plot
The play concerns George Blake, who has been convicted for spying for the Russians and sentenced to forty-two years' imprisonment, and a fellow prisoner, Sean Bourke. Bourke helps Blake escape to Moscow, after which Blake does not want to let Bourke leave Moscow to return to his native Ireland.
Controversy
In 1995, Stephen Fry famously walked out of the play near the start of its West End run, after his performance received a bad review in the Financial Times. It was reported at the time that he suffered an attack of stage fright, but he has since disclosed that it was bipolar disorder. Fry walked out of the production for good, leaving only an apology, and provoking its early closure.
Simon Gray described Fry's action as "cowardly", and in a statement to the press said: "It is disgraceful that so much media attention has been devoted to this squalid little story... I confess my own failure as a director was to have cast Stephen Fry in the first place, and in the second place, not to have acknowledged my error by requesting his departure after his (self-proclaimed) inadequacies were abundantly clear to me." In response to the suggestion his reaction was insensitive to Fry's predicament, Gray added: "I'm a friend of Stephen's. I have great sympathy because he was hurt and stressed, but what he left behind him was the most awful chaos and distress for other people who loved him, including me."
Fry went missing, travelling to Belgium, and contemplating suicide. His personal website says, "The experience still haunts him, but the depression has now faded to embarrassment and the anger to forgiveness."
The incident would be humorously referenced shortly after in Bottom Live: The Big Number Two Tour, in which Rik Mayall also starred.
What I remember of this, there was a big thing in the media about whether Stephen Fry was going to commit suicide or not. Whatever his reasons, and I'm not really bothered, he is someone who is prepared to walk out and damn the consequences. In some ways that is not a bad thing; if more "television stars" had done that exact thing at the beginning of the COVID CON, maybe less real people would be dead now.
There is also the interesting question, why were the newspapers and television putting out the possibility Stephen Fry was about to end his life, anyway? Is that a sane thing to do if one really thought it was a remote possibility? ...A suggestion might be, if you do something considered to be outlandishly bad form to get your EQUITY CARD cancelled, then you are effectively dead to the industry and the characters you play therefore get liquidated. R.I.P. George Michael.
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Now why do I bring that up? Well, I like examining patterns, and while I had no interest in the following story at the time, I think maybe there might be some milage to get out of it now. I assumed Piers Morgan's bust-up at ITV was staged, and it was designed to reposition him away from the authoritarian pro-lockdown stance he had previously taken at the start of the pandemic. This is what I suspect happened with the Referendum vote. He was a staunch REMAINER up until the point BREXIT won; then he switched camps, likely, to lead the direction of the opposition.
Piers Morgan Storms Off After Meghan Markle Coverage Call Out
9 Mar 2021
Piers Morgan stormed off ‘Good Morning Britain’ after his colleague Alex Beresford called him out for his coverage of Meghan Markle — he has since announced he is leaving the show.
But I'm actually not so sure now. He stormed off set because it appeared to get personal. They might have coated this in a layer of "racism", but it was one person's personal attack on another person. Was it scripted?
The following two grabs are at the point of the attack. The camera flicks to Morgan, he's tight lipped with his arms crossed. As Alex Beresford continues, he's not looking at Morgan, other than an odd glance. The still below is exactly at the point he looks back to Morgan and realises he's on his feet and walking, followed by a grab of his reaction.
We might think this is cut and dried, but there is a big problem. For some reason, this unrelated clip of Piers Morgan was sandwiched in between the other clips.
Did you catch the date? March 9th....9x3....999. Do we thing that is a coincidence? Particularly when it's placed on the same section of video as Piers Morgan looking into the camera and smiling. And it's paired with the whole point of the apparent out burst, the Oprah interview which was broadcast two days earlier, on March 7th...7x3...777. Am I reading the numbers into it, or is it intentional NUMBERWANG! ?
I was planning on going through the transcript in this post, but it has already gotten a lot longer that I originally intended; so I'll continue in the next one. But keep in mind, in 1995, Stephen Fry was to star in a play 'Cell Mates' in the West End, he did, I think, one show, maybe two, and then quit...apparently leaving the country so people couldn't talk him back. He said it was stage fright, which was later reclassified as undiagnosed bipolar disorder. One question to ask, is bipolar disorder a made up medical condition just to protect Stephen Fry's reputation? And is this also the real reason for Piers Morgan refusing to believe Meghan Markle had suicidal thoughts. As in, "Been the, done that, bought the T-shirt." ?