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44-728: Timothy Marc Plester (born 10 September 1970) is a British actor, playwright , and filmmaker, best known for the documentaries Way of the Morris and The Ballad of Shirley Collins - plus a multifarious number of cameo roles for film and TV. Born and raised in Banbury, Oxfordshire , Plester graduated from Dartington College of Arts in Devon , with a BA in Theatre, and went on to obtain an MA (Hons) in playwriting studies from Birmingham University . Plester's award-winning documentary Way of

88-482: A murder mystery play which is the longest-running West End show , it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Contemporary playwrights in the United States are affected by recent declines in theatre attendance. No longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical productions must use ticket sales as

132-577: A 2-days event hosted in the City Hall. In 2018, it also launched Pull Focus , a two-day summer festival of Irish documentary. Music has also featured strongly in BFF's programming; some highlights include the collaborations with local talents such as Duke Special and David Holmes on audiovisual performances, hosting the Italian progressive rock band Simonetti's Goblin to perform a live score to Dawn of

176-491: A Special Mention in the UK Competition at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2021. The directing duo are currently working with the illustrator and land-rights campaigner Nick Hayes on an adaptation of his best-selling book, 'The Book of Trespass'. Plester's writing credits for film include Ant Muzak (2002), a short film directed by Ben Gregor and starring Nick Moran and Mackenzie Crook . It was the winner of an Audience Award at

220-425: A huge fire that completely the internal part of the building. Despite losing their base and all their records, the festival recovered, relocated to Donegall St, and staged the event again the following year. The 2005 festival was launched by award-winning actor Stephen Rea . In 2010, the festival raised a record of £230,000 ($ 346,000). By 2016, the festival expanded to a total of 133 films from 30 countries, while

264-654: A playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. Today, theatre companies have new play development programs meant to develop new American voices in playwriting. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an effort to showcase various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights for residencies. Funding through national organizations, such as

308-547: A poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . These early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around

352-408: A reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which

396-525: A source of income, which has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002–03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973–74. Playwrights commonly encounter difficulties in getting their shows produced and often cannot earn a living through their plays alone, leading them to take up other jobs to supplement their incomes. Many playwrights are also film makers . For instance, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock began his career as

440-527: A third film entitled World of Wrestling (2007). Again created and written by Plester and directed by Gregor, the film stars Mackenzie Crook, Kevin Eldon , Patrick Baladi , Miranda Hart and Kris Marshall . In 2007, Plester also completed work on an offbeat romantic comedy entitled English Language (With English Subtitles) - which marked his directorial debut. The short, in which Plester also starred (alongside MyAnna Buring and Craig Parkinson ), premiered at

484-531: Is an annual film festival in Northern Ireland with an attendance over 25,000. In 2022, it launched its International Competition program. BFF includes the Docs Ireland international documentary festival, as well as an Audience Development and Inclusion program. The festival also sponsors year-round film screenings around Belfast. Co-founded in 1995 by Michele Devlin and writer Laurence McKeown ,

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528-423: Is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston or Thomas Dekker : Jonson described himself as

572-542: Is still useful to playwrights today is the " French scene ", which is a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Notable playwrights: Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in

616-586: The Albert Clock , which featured heavily in the film. BFF hosted screenings at unique architectural sites, including the US political drama The West Wing at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, Oh, Mr Porter! at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum , Cultra , The Warriors in a dystopian landscape beneath a city center motorway flyover, and Stanley Kubrick 's cult sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey in

660-637: The British Film Institute . Site-specific screenings are a signature part of the festival. Through the years, the management team strived to include people and the fabric of the city in the program. They have screened films in used and disused swimming pools, on a boat in the River Lagan , with live piano accompaniment in St Anne's Cathedral (16mm original version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame ). Carol Reed 's Odd Man Out beside

704-461: The City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. For the ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis , "the act of making". This is the source of

748-624: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Theatre Communications Group , encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging playwrights. Playwrights will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting, which allows them to evaluate their own plays and the actors performing them. Cold reading means that the actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it for

792-459: The interregnum , and Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy. Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn . As

836-429: The "Breakthrough" British films of 2011. Plester and Curry are also responsible for the short field-recorded documentary Here We’m Be Together (which premiered at the 2014 BFI London Film Festival ). The Ballad of Shirley Collins , the duo's feature-length film about the iconic English folk-singer Shirley Collins , premiered at the 2017 BFI London Film Festival ). Partly funded by a successful kickstarter campaign,

880-523: The 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until

924-584: The 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). Playwright William Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In England, after

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968-507: The 2003 Sydney Film Festival and was nominated for 'Best UK Short' at the 2003 Soho Rushes Festival and the 2002 Raindance Film Festival . He also wrote and created Blake's Junction 7 (2004) - again directed by Ben Gregor and starring Johnny Vegas , Mackenzie Crook, Mark Heap , Raquel Cassidy and Martin Freeman – which premiered at the 2004 Edinburgh Film Festival. Both films became cult hits and were released on DVD in 2008, along with

1012-546: The 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival and went on to screen at over 45 film festivals worldwide, picking-up 5 awards along the way. He has also written and directed the JFK -inspired beat poem Et In Motorcadia Ego! and the award-winning 15-second film Slapphappy , which premiered at the Belfast Film Festival in 2008. Winner of the 1992/93 'National Student Playwright Of The Year' award, Plester has writing credits for

1056-718: The 2009 BAFTA-winning short film September . Plester played petty thief Linus Brody in the first two series’ of the BBC Birmingham production WPC 56 . He played the role of Black Walder Rivers in the HBO series Game of Thrones and the homeless junkie Julian in After Life . In 2018, he played Roy Thomas Baker , Queen 's producer, in the film Bohemian Rhapsody . In September 2019, he appeared in an episode of Doctors as Martin Taylor. In 2020, he appeared as Mark in

1100-497: The 2018 edition spread to 22 locations and featured 178 films. In 2022, the festival launched an International Competition for first or second features, sponsored by several organizations, notably Greg Darby's Yellow Moon. Best Film award goes with a £7,000 monetary prize, while £1,500 are given with Jury Prizes for Outstanding Craft Contribution and Breakout Performance. BFF screens feature and short films, documentaries, host retrospectives as well as world premieres. As of 2023,

1144-473: The 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides . The origins of Athenian tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in

1188-494: The Dead ; and many more. Additionally, every year the festival hosts various special events. Belfast Film Festival also sponsors year-round film screenings around Belfast. In 2019, the documentary section was separated into an independent festival, Docs Ireland. It is operated by the same team, but has its own program, industry section, etc. The festival's industry section, the marketplace, spans for two days and offers filmmakers

1232-424: The English word poet . Despite Chinese Theatre having performers dated back to the 6th century BC with You Meng , their perspective of theatre was such that plays had no other role than "performer" or "actor", but given that the performers were also the ones who invented their performances, they could be considered a form of playwright. Outside of the Western world there is Indian classical drama , with one of

1276-765: The Moon (Mandragora Movies), Wolf Hall (BBC), Bone in the Throat (Hello and Company), Shifty (Metrodome), Doctor Who (BBC), Life On Mars (BBC), Hustle ( BBC ), Murphy's Law ( BBC ), 1066: The Battle For Middle Earth (Channel 4), Magicians (Universal Films), It's All Gone Pete Tong (Vertigo Films), Galavant (ABC), Heist ( BBC ), Ant Muzak (Film Club), Criminal Justice (BBC), Five Daughters (BBC), Silent Witness (BBC), The Wrong Mans (BBC), Uncle Dad ( SMG ), Goths (BBC), Residents (BBC), Poliakoff's Friends and Crocodiles (BBC), both series of Paul Whitehouse ’s Happiness ( BBC ) and

1320-525: The Morris premiered at SXSW 2011 and received a limited theatrical release in UK cinemas before being released on DVD. Co-directed with Rob Curry and produced independently by Fifth Column Films , the feature-length documentary includes contributions from Billy Bragg , Fairport Convention 's Chris Leslie and members of The Adderbury Village Morris Men. It was selected by the UK Film Focus as one of

1364-638: The festival began as a part of Féile an Phobail , and operated as the West Belfast Film Festival (WBFF) from 1995 to 2000. In its third and fourth years, WBFF ran as an independent event and included venues throughout the city. In the year 2000 it became the Belfast Film Festival and expanded into a citywide event. In 2003, the line-up grew to 70 films. On 17 April 2004, the North Street Arcade suffered

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1408-610: The film also screened at the Rotterdam international film festival and CPH:DOX in Denmark. Southern Journey (Revisited) , Plester and Curry's third feature-length documentary together, premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2020 and was screened on Sky Arts in the autumn of 2021. Other work together includes Hillbilly Homilies , a profile piece on the Appalachain poet Maurice Manning , and The Battle Of Denham Ford , which won

1452-513: The first time, and usually, the technical requirements are minimal. The O'Neill Festival offers summer retreats for young playwrights to develop their work with directors and actors. Playwriting collectives like 13P and Orbiter 3 gather members together to produce, rather than develop, new works. The idea of the playwriting collective is in response to plays being stuck in the development process and never advancing to production. Belfast Film Festival The Belfast Film Festival (BFF)

1496-548: The historic dry dock in the city's old shipyards where the RMS Titanic last sat on dry ground. The 2017 screenings of The Exorcist and The Omen were made in the former Holy Rosary Church on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast, which was deconsecrated for almost 40 years. Still, some criticized the choice of the location as insensitive and disrespectful. In partnership with Belfast One, BFF hosts Belfast Summer Cinema,

1540-504: The independent Icelandic feature film Backyard Village . Plester has also appeared in three episodes of Mackenzie's Crook's re-booted version of Worzel Gummidge for the BBC. Playwright The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . William Shakespeare is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across

1584-490: The latter part of the 16th century. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , and other Sturm und Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior and were part of the German romanticism movement. Aleksandr Ostrovsky was Russia's first professional playwright). Author and playwright Agatha Christie wrote The Moustrap ,

1628-433: The oldest known playwrights being Śudraka , whose attributed plays can be dated to the second century BC. The Nāṭya Shāstra , a text on the performing arts from between 500BC-500AD, categorizes playwrights as being among the members of a theatre company, although playwrights were generally the highest in social status, with some being kings. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics , in which he analyzed

1672-435: The principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy. He then considered elements of drama: plot ( μύθος mythos ), character ( ἔθος ethos ), thought ( dianoia ), diction ( lexis ), music ( melodia ), and spectacle ( opsis ). Since the myths on which Greek tragedy were based were widely known, plot had to do with the arrangement and selection of existing material. Character

1716-525: The team includes: International Programmer Jess Kiang, UK and Ireland Programmer Rose Baker, Head of Industry and Marketplace Roisin Geraghty, Chair Mark Cousins, and others. BFF's patrons are: Terry George , David Holmes , Pat Murphy , William Crawley , and Stephen Rea . Belfast Film Festival is sponsored by NI Department for Communities, Arts Council NI, Film Hub NI, Yellow Moon, British Council , Belfast City Council , Northern Ireland Screen and

1760-566: The theatre including: Dakota ( Edinburgh Festival 1995 and National Tour 1996); Mad Dog Killer Leper Fiend (Edinburgh Festival 1996 and London's Man In The Moon Theatre 1997); and Yellow Longhair (London's Oval House Theatre 2000). A collection of his stageplays 1-2-3-4 Plays was published in September 2020. Plester's many and varied acting credits for TV and film include: Lockout (EuropaCorp), Kick-Ass (Universal), Control (Northsee Pictures), Cuban Fury (Big Talk), Closer to

1804-485: The unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for behavior and language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, and Shakespeare 's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. One structural unit that

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1848-426: The world. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye , from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright ). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write"

1892-714: Was determined by choice and by action. Tragedy is mimesis —"the imitation of an action that is serious". He developed his notion of hamartia , or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist , which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play. There were also a number of secular performances staged in the Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after

1936-499: Was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities , of action, place, and time. This meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed the subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of

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