Simon Russell Beale

Tonight, Homeland and Sherwood star David Harewood on his first lead TV role as a duty solicitor fighting corruption in a fast-paced new drama.

Acclaimed actor Sir Simon Russell Beale camps it up as Liberace, with sequence, secrets and lies strewn across the stage.

And the avatar of renowned pianist Yuja Wang is performing at London's Southbank Centre.

We'll hear what it's like to don a VR headset and enter her worlds.

Music journalist Erika Gio.

Playing with Fire is at the Southbank Centre in London until January.

It seems that Sir Simon Russell Beale has never been off the stage until his recent treatment for bowel cancer, whether it's Chekhov, Ibsen or Shakespeare.

He's also starred in Countess films, from The Death of Stalin to the new two-part biopic about the French president Charles de Gaulle.

OK, well, thank you again, Cherise Saywell, winner of the 2026 BBC National Short Story Award with the University of Cambridge.

On front row tomorrow, Kirsty will be talking to Simon Russell Beale about playing Liberace on stage in I'll Be Seeing You and to the star of Sherwood and Homeland, David Harewood.

Join her tomorrow at 7.15. That's it for tonight.

Thanks to all the judges, to the writers and to our wonderful audience here in the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House.

with the big, big funny hat, which became symbolic, I suppose, of the French Holocaust Legion.

Simon Russell Beale is sensational, playing Winston Churchill, and the engagement of the two is incredible.

I mean, clearly they both tolerated each other, but they both infuriated each other.

It was really the most extraordinary film.

It's a movie called Prima Facie, which is a legal term meaning a case that has enough evidence to be the basis of a claim, something you need before a case goes to trial.

The movie is based on a hit one-woman play, which just had an award-winning run in the West End with Jodie Comer, but Cynthia's movie version also stars Daniel Ng, Simon Russell Beale, and Elizabeth Dulau.

It's due to hit cinemas in November.

I'm a strong woman.

And his replacement is a name that people probably will be familiar with.

It, he, he's a Georgian, and his name is Lavrentiy Beria, who, um, was so memorably played by Simon Russell Beale in The Death of Stalin.

And this man, Giles, I mean, is a criminal.

I mean, he is a rapist.

screen yeah you can start you can start from there yeah interesting i'm also interested john in your theatrical being an actor you've uh also composed music for stage shows, collaborated on things.

Was it Hamlet with Simon Russell? Hamlet with Simon Russell.

Yeah, that sounds extraordinary.

How was that?

And when he proposed doing it here, I knew it could not be in better hands.

Sherman said he was even more delighted when Tony Bafta and Olivier award-winning actor Simon Russell Beale agreed to play the part of flamboyant showman Liberace, with Fraffi also joining the cast.

That made it even more extraordinary.

Who could resist that, Sherman said.

This is a confection like no other scene on the Pitt Lockery Festival Theater stage, a mirage of rhinestone and glitz about a man who played with and for us in equal measure.

He added, We have been so lucky to have the cooperation of the Liberace Foundation in bringing this play to the Pitlochry stage and to have been given access to his collection in Las Vegas for research purposes.

We are also honored to have the great Simon Russell Beale playing Liberace and Fraffi as a writer forced to create a play about him.

And Martin Sherman himself will be taking the stage too for the first time.

Uh, yes, I do th- think of that.

And actually, I suggested the actor who reads it, uh, Simon Russell Beale, very, uh, good actor.

Uh, brilliant, in fact.

And, uh, yeah, you do have to think about that because one of the great surprises of the last five or six years has been the rise in audio sales, which are, which are now, you know, approaching the same as the, uh, the hardcover.