'Coming Back Home': Musical 'Amelie' Set for London Theater Re-Opening

Audrey Brisson, cast member (title role) of ''Amelie'' poses for a photograph at the Criterion Theatre in London, Britain, May 13, 2021. Picture taken May 13, 2021. REUTERS/John Sibley
Audrey Brisson, cast member (title role) of ''Amelie'' poses for a photograph at the Criterion Theatre in London, Britain, May 13, 2021. Picture taken May 13, 2021. REUTERS/John Sibley
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'Coming Back Home': Musical 'Amelie' Set for London Theater Re-Opening

Audrey Brisson, cast member (title role) of ''Amelie'' poses for a photograph at the Criterion Theatre in London, Britain, May 13, 2021. Picture taken May 13, 2021. REUTERS/John Sibley
Audrey Brisson, cast member (title role) of ''Amelie'' poses for a photograph at the Criterion Theatre in London, Britain, May 13, 2021. Picture taken May 13, 2021. REUTERS/John Sibley

Standing in a makeshift Paris metro station at London's Criterion theater, actress Audrey Brisson performs a heart-warming song during a rehearsal for the musical "Amelie".

It has been over a year since the production was on the stage in London, and as England takes the next step out of lockdown, the musical, based on the hit 2001 French film, will be one of the first to open in the capital's West End.

"It feels wonderful, it feels heart-warming, it feels exciting, exhilarating. It feels like coming back home," Brisson, who plays the title role, told Reuters.

"I've missed storytelling. I have missed seeing in the eyes of the audience that glimmer of forgetting reality and just being swept off their feet and imagination."

Like elsewhere around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down theaters in the West End. As of Monday, they will be able to welcome back audiences but only at 50% capacity and with protective measures in places.

Director Michael Fentiman said "Amelie The Musical" could re-open thanks to financial support from the British government's Cultural Recovery Fund as well as for being a "nimble" production, where the 16 cast members are also the orchestra.

"We thought it was an imaginative way to ... tell their story. However, it also means we are a bit less expensive than other musicals," he said.

"We're a show about coming out of isolation ... about the joy of moving from ... an isolated, anxious place into one of ... connection and joy and empathy ... so we ... had to be here in the moment where theater turns the light on for the first time."

About a third of London theaters will re-open from next week, according to Julian Bird, chief executive of the Society of London Theater and UK Theater. Major productions like "Wicked", "Hamilton" and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cinderella" are awaiting the final phase out of lockdown in June to raise their curtains from the summer.

"The bigger shows need the fuller capacity, their running costs are just too high, they can't get by on 50 percent of the seats," Bird said.

Amongst the shows returning next week are "Everybody's Talking About Jamie", "Les Miserables - The Staged Concert" and "The Mousetrap".

"If we just look at central London and the West End ... bookings have been remarkably strong," Bird said. "People are very keen to get back to the theater."

Lighting designer Elliott Griggs, who worked as a supermarket delivery driver during lockdown, said it was "amazing being back".

"So many people are still waiting for that call to come," he said. "So I feel very lucky to be here and back doing this job."



Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Star, Dies at 67

Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
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Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Star, Dies at 67

Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)

Michael Madsen, the actor best known for his coolly menacing, steely-eyed, often sadistic characters in the films of Quentin Tarantino including "Reservoir Dogs" and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2," has died.

Madsen was found unresponsive in his home in Malibu, California, on Thursday morning and pronounced dead, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Watch Commander Christopher Jauregui said. He is believed to have died of natural causes and authorities do not suspect any foul play was involved. Madsen's manager Ron Smith said cardiac arrest was the apparent cause. He was 67.

Madsen’s career spanned more than 300 credits stretching back to the early 1980s, many in low-budget and independent films. He often played low-level thugs, gangsters and shady cops in small roles. Tarantino would use that identity, but make him a main character.

His torture of a captured police officer in Tarantino's 1992 directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs," in which Madsen's black-suited bank robber Vic "Mr. Blonde" Vega severs the man's ear while dancing to Stealers Wheel’s "Stuck in the Middle with You" was an early career-defining moment for both director and actor.

He would become a Tarantino regular. He had a small role as the cowboy-hatted desert dweller Budd, a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, in 2003's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," then a starring role the following year in the sequel, in which he battles with Uma Thurman's protagonist The Bride and buries her alive.

Madsen also appeared in Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" and "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood." He was an alternate choice to play the hit man role that revived John Travolta's career in 1994's "Pulp Fiction." The character, Vincent Vega, is the brother of Madsen's "Reservoir Dogs" robber in Tarantino's cinematic universe.

His sister, Oscar-nominated "Sideways" actor Virginia Madsen, was among those paying him tribute on Thursday.

"He was thunder and velvet. Mischief wrapped in tenderness. A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother—etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark," she said in a statement. "I’ll miss our inside jokes, the sudden laughter, the sound of him. I’ll miss the boy he was before the legend. I miss my big brother."

His "Hateful Eight" co-star and fellow Tarantino favorite Walton Goggins celebrated him on Instagram.

"Michael Madsen... this man... this artist... this poet... this rascal..." Goggins wrote. "Aura like no one else. Ain’t enough words so I’ll just say this.... I love you buddy. A H8TER forever."

James Woods, Madsen's co-star in two films, wrote on X, "I was always touched by his sweet nature and generosity, the absolute opposite of the ‘tough guys’ he portrayed so brilliantly."

Madsen was born in Chicago to a family of three children.

He performed on stage with the city's Steppenwolf Theatre Company alongside actors including John Malkovich.

During a handprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in November 2020, Madsen reflected on his first visit to Hollywood in the early 1980s.

"I got out and I walked around and I looked and I wondered if there were someday some way that that was going to be a part of me. And I didn’t know because I didn’t know what I was going to do at that point with myself," he said. "I could have been a bricklayer. I could have been an architect. I could have been a garbage man. I could have been nothing. But I got lucky. I got lucky as an actor."

His first film role of any significance was in the 1983 hacker thriller "WarGames" with Matthew Broderick. The following year he played pro baseball player Bump Bailey alongside Robert Redford in "The Natural."

He spent much of the rest of the 1980s doing one-off guest roles on television dramas including "Miami Vice" and "Quantum Leap."

1991 would bring a career boost with roles in "The Doors," where he played a buddy of Val Kilmer's Jim Morrison, and "Thelma and Louise" where he played the boyfriend of Susan Sarandon's Louise.

Then would come "Reservoir Dogs."

In 1995, he played a black ops mercenary in the sci-fi thriller "Species" and in 1997 he was third billed after Al Pacino and Johnny Depp as a member of a crew of gangsters in "Donnie Brasco."

He occasionally played against type. In the 1993 family orca adventure "Free Willy" he was the foster father to the orphan protagonist.

Madsen would return to smaller roles but worked constantly in the final two decades of his career.

Madsen had six children. He had struggled in recent years after the 2022 death of one of his sons, Hudson.

"Losing a child is the hardest and most painful experience that can happen in this world," Madsen said in an Instagram post last year.

He said the loss put a strain on his marriage to third wife, DeAnna Madsen. He was arrested on suspicion of domestic battery last year, but was not charged. He filed for divorce, but asked that the filing be dismissed just weeks later.

He had previously been arrested twice on suspicion of DUI, most recently in 2019, when he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor.

"In the last two years Michael Madsen has been doing some incredible work with independent film including upcoming feature films ‘Resurrection Road,’ ‘Concessions and ’Cookbook for Southern Housewives,' and was really looking forward to this next chapter in his life," his managers Smith and Susan Ferris and publicist Liz Rodriguez said in a statement. "Michael was also preparing to release a new book called ‘Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems’ currently being edited."

They added that he "was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, who will be missed by many."