‘Love Actually’ Filmmaker Richard Curtis Puts on ‘Christmas Actually’ – Variety

Writer and director Richard Curtis, known for the popular British romantic comedies Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, has revealed his next project.

“Christmas Actually” is a stage show that includes live music, performance, poetry and comedy that will serve as a fundraiser for Comic Relief, reports BBC News. It is not a sequel to the 2003 song “Love Actually”.

Comic Relief is a charitable foundation founded by Curtis and Lenny Henry in 1985 in response to famine in Ethiopia. Since then, the charity has raised millions to help those in need through fundraisers where British comedians perform. The annual Red Nose Day event is the biggest source of revenue.

Christmas Actually, curated by Curtis, will run eight shows at London’s Royal Festival Hall from December 7-11.

“We hope it will be a veritable box of chocolates – or perhaps a calendar – of delights.” Curtis told BBC Newsadding that it will be “loud, soulful and full of surprises and jokes, with some proper celebrity glamor”.

“I remember not always loving the Christmas shows I took my kids to, but I always took them to one,” Curtis said. “So we thought it would be fun to do a Christmas show that would be really fun for the whole family. And then the idea of ​​also doing it to raise money for Comic Relief made the idea irresistible.”

“We’re hoping to cram a wealth of wonder into a raucous 90 minutes. I suspect some audience members will be blown away with performances they didn’t expect – there will definitely be some raucous singing and some unexpected celebrities appearing on screens and even in person,” Curtis added.

Curtis has another Christmas-themed project in the works — an untitled New York thriller for Peacock in which Melissa McCarthy, Papa Isidro, and Marc Maron star in a fairy tale comedy about a workaholic man who enlists the help of a magical genie to help win his family over before Christmas.