Lisa Dillon
Encyclopedia
Lisa Dillon is Critics Circle Award-winning English
actress.
and The Tempest
by William Shakespeare
, The Devils
by John Whiting
, The Devil's Law Case
by John Webster
, Yentl
by Leah Napolin and The Playboy of the Western World
by J. M. Synge.
Having graduated from RADA, her first theatrical job was the title role in Euripides
' Iphigeneia at Aulis
at the Crucible Theatre
, Sheffield
. She then went on to appear in numerous theatre productions, including as Hilda Wangel in The Master Builder
by Henrik Ibsen
at the Albery Theatre, (now the Noël Coward Theatre) London. Desdemona in Othello
(with the RSC
at the Trafalgar Studios
, London, before embarking on an international tour). Ibsen's Hedda Gabler
as Thea (Almeida Theatre
, London, later transferring to the Duke of York's Theatre
, London) and Period of Adjustment
by Tennessee Williams
(The Swan Theatre
, Stratford-upon-Avon
later transferring to the Almeida Theatre, London.)
In 2007 she returned to the Crucible to play Celia in Shakespeare's As You Like It during February (in a production that also played at the RSC
complete works festival) and Varya in Chekhov
's The Cherry Orchard
during March. She then starred in the National Theatre
's revival of Noël Coward
's Present Laughter
and The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other
. She also appeared in Anna Mackmin
's 2008 West End revival of Under the Blue Sky by David Eldridge
.
In 2009 Dillon starred in When the Rain Stops Falling at the Almeida, and in 2010 in Design for Living and its successor production A Flea In Her Ear
at the Old Vic. Eldridge created the role of Lucy in The Knot of the Heart, presented at the Almeida in March 2011, specifically for Dillon.
television series Cranford
on BBC One
where she starred alongside Michael Gambon
, Imelda Staunton
, Jim Carter and Judi Dench
. She also starred in the 2003 drama Cambridge Spies
and the 2004 TV film, Hawking, both of which were also for the BBC. She will appear in 'The Jury'(Itv) later this Autumn and is currently filming 'Dirk Gently' for BBC4.
directed 2003 film Bright Young Things
.
on his song "She's Made A Gentleman Of Me".
and left in 1997. She began a degree in English Literature and Drama at Royal Holloway but abandoned it when she won a place at RADA.
for Outstanding Newcomer of the Year for the performance she gave in a production of Ibsen
's The Master Builder
. She won that year's Ian Charleson Award, in part, for that performance.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actress.
Theatre
Whilst training at RADA, Dillon appeared in several training productions, including: HamletHamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
and The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, The Devils
The Devils (play)
The Devils is a play, commissioned by Sir Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company and written by British dramatist John Whiting, based on Aldous Huxley's factual historical novel, The Devils of Loudun.-Performance:...
by John Whiting
John Whiting
John Robert Whiting was an English dramatist and critic.Born in Salisbury, England, he was educated at Taunton School. His works include:* A Penny for a Song. A play * Marching Song. A play...
, The Devil's Law Case
The Devil's Law Case
The Devil's Law Case is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Webster, and first published in 1623.-Date:The play's date of authorship and early performance history is unknown. The events upon which the play is based occurred in 1610, so that the drama must post-date that year...
by John Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
, Yentl
Yentl
Yentl is a play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer.Based on Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," it centers on a young girl who defies tradition by discussing and debating Jewish law and theology with her rabbi father...
by Leah Napolin and The Playboy of the Western World
The Playboy of the Western World
The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on January 26, 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s...
by J. M. Synge.
Having graduated from RADA, her first theatrical job was the title role in Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' Iphigeneia at Aulis
Iphigeneia at Aulis
Iphigenia in Aulis is the last extant work of the playwright Euripides. Written between 408, after the Orestes, and 406 BC, the year of Euripides's death, the play was first produced the following year by his son or nephew, Euripides the Younger, and won the first place at the Athenian city...
at the Crucible Theatre
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre is a theatre built in 1971 and located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. As well as theatrical performances, it is home to the most important event in professional snooker, the World Snooker Championship....
, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
. She then went on to appear in numerous theatre productions, including as Hilda Wangel in The Master Builder
The Master Builder
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:...
by Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
at the Albery Theatre, (now the Noël Coward Theatre) London. Desdemona in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
(with the RSC
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
at the Trafalgar Studios
Trafalgar Studios
Trafalgar Studios, formerly The Whitehall Theatre until 2004, is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London....
, London, before embarking on an international tour). Ibsen's Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
as Thea (Almeida Theatre
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...
, London, later transferring to the Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
, London) and Period of Adjustment
Period of Adjustment
Period of Adjustment is a 1960 play by Tennessee Williams that was adapted for the screen in 1962.Both the stage and film versions are set on Christmas Eve and tell the gentle, light-hearted story of two couples, one newlywed and the other married for five years, both experiencing pains and...
by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
(The Swan Theatre
Swan Theatre (Stratford)
The Swan Theatre is a theatre belonging to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is built on to the side of the larger Royal Shakespeare Theatre, occupying the Victorian Gothic structure that formerly housed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre that preceded the RST but was...
, Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
later transferring to the Almeida Theatre, London.)
In 2007 she returned to the Crucible to play Celia in Shakespeare's As You Like It during February (in a production that also played at the RSC
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
complete works festival) and Varya in Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
during March. She then starred in the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
's revival of Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Present Laughter
Present Laughter
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
and The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other
The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other
The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other is a one-act play without words written by Peter Handke. The play has 450 characters and focuses on a day in the life of an unspecified town square...
. She also appeared in Anna Mackmin
Anna Mackmin
Anna Mackmin is an award-winning British theatre director. She has been an associate director at the Sheffield Crucible and at the Gate Theatre in London.-Life and career:...
's 2008 West End revival of Under the Blue Sky by David Eldridge
David Eldridge
David Eldridge is the earliest known person of European descent to die in the Western Reserve, and the first person to be buried in the newly-created city of Cleveland...
.
In 2009 Dillon starred in When the Rain Stops Falling at the Almeida, and in 2010 in Design for Living and its successor production A Flea In Her Ear
A Flea in Her Ear
A Flea in Her Ear is a play by Georges Feydeau written in 1907, at the height of the Belle Époque.-Plot:...
at the Old Vic. Eldridge created the role of Lucy in The Knot of the Heart, presented at the Almeida in March 2011, specifically for Dillon.
Television
Dillon is now best known for her role as Mary Smith in the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television series Cranford
Cranford
Cranford may refer to:*Cranford - a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell*Cranford - a BBC television adaptation of Cranford and other works by Elizabeth GaskellCranford may also refer to the following places:...
on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
where she starred alongside Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
, Imelda Staunton
Imelda Staunton
Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series Up the Garden Path, the Harry Potter film series and Vera Drake...
, Jim Carter and Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
. She also starred in the 2003 drama Cambridge Spies
Cambridge Spies
Cambridge Spies is a 2003 four-part BBC television drama concerning the lives of the best-known quartet of the Cambridge Five Soviet spies from 1934 to the 1951 defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to the Soviet Union...
and the 2004 TV film, Hawking, both of which were also for the BBC. She will appear in 'The Jury'(Itv) later this Autumn and is currently filming 'Dirk Gently' for BBC4.
Film
Dillon's film credits include the Stephen FryStephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
directed 2003 film Bright Young Things
Bright Young Things
Bright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People: young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians, as well as society in...
.
Music
In 2008 Dillon duetted with British singer-songwriter Tim ArnoldTim Arnold (musician)
Tim Arnold is an English singer-songwriter, composer, producer and musician from Soho, London. He is currently a solo artist, but first achieved success as the singer and songwriter of Britpop band Jocasta in the mid-1990s. He runs the record label TA Music and has released thirteen albums, one...
on his song "She's Made A Gentleman Of Me".
Radio
In 2011 Dillon read a Jarvis and Ayres production of Hilda Richards' 1939 story 'Jemima Gets Them Guessing' for Radio 4's Afternoon Reading show, on March 9.Personal life
Dillon went to Bournemouth School for GirlsBournemouth School for Girls
Bournemouth School for Girls is a grammar school located in Bournemouth, Dorset, exclusively for girls.It is a girls grammar school and sixth form college, teaching girls aged 11-18.-Academics:...
and left in 1997. She began a degree in English Literature and Drama at Royal Holloway but abandoned it when she won a place at RADA.
Awards
In 2003 she was nominated for the Evening Standard AwardEvening Standard Awards
The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre. Sponsored by the Evening Standard newspaper, they are announced in late November or early December...
for Outstanding Newcomer of the Year for the performance she gave in a production of Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's The Master Builder
The Master Builder
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:...
. She won that year's Ian Charleson Award, in part, for that performance.