Almeida Theatre Heads Into Final Two Weeks of FIGURES OF SPEECH Series Two

The Almeida Theatre today releases the fifth instalment in the second series of digital film project Figures of Speech, with Russell Tovey performing American aviator Charles Lindbergh's 1941 'The War Agitators' speech.

Lindbergh's speech advocating US non-intervention in World War Two led to the coining of the term 'America First' and received condemnation for its allegedly anti-Semitic content.

The series concludes on Monday 23 October with a collection of films written and performed by group of Young Leaders, aged between 15-25, tackling a diverse range of subjects including masculinity, cuts to the prison system, the representation of Latin Americans in British society and Islamophobia.

All the films can be watched for free via a dedicated mini-site: speech.almeida.co.uk

Series two has previously featured Cush Jumbo delivering Malcolm X's 'The Language of Violence', Derek Jacobi reading Socrates' 'I Go To Die', Noma Dumezweni performing Margaret Sanger's 'The Morality of Birth Control' and John Heffernan with Harold Macmillan's 'The Winds of Change'. The films examine what leadership means and the power of the spoken word in the 21st century with a focus on rhetoric that initially received a hostile reaction and remains both divisive and provocative.

Alongside a growing anthology of films, the microsite features additional material exploring the speeches, the context within which they were first delivered and the choice to revive them in 2017. The site features guest-authored articles and filmed reactions from each performer alongside an audience of people from local community groups including Women Inspiring New Generations (WINGS), Finsbury Park Death Café, Freedom From Torture and Almeida Young Company.

The series two films have already received a combined total of over 40,000 views and have reached almost 300,000 people on social media. Series one has so far received 150,000 views and 110 million Twitter impressions, with Young Leader Jamie Flatters' video watched over 17,000 times and Ian McKellen's performance of Harvey Milk's 'The Hope Speech' viewed 68,000 times.

Figures of Speech is conceived by Rupert Goold and directed by Anthony Almeida. It is the Almeida's third major digital theatre event, following day-long durational readings of The Iliad and The Odyssey in 2015, which inspired audiences of over 50,000 people across the UK and around the world.

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