excerpt from Tom Hiddleston's theatre journey to Hamlet
Wednesday, 9 August, 2017 by Will Longman
He made his first foray into theatre in 1999, when he appeared at Edinburgh Festival Fringe with his student drama group. He starred in a production of Journey’s End, RC Sherriff’s First World War drama in which Hiddleston appeared as Captain Stanhope. A review in the Independent highlighted his “magnificently ferocious” performance, which “provided the emotional core of the play”. A promising start for a young actor’s career.
excerpt from TOM HIDDLESTON'S 'TWISTED LOVE'
by Katie Antoniou on 31/01/12
KA: You started acting at The Dragon school in Oxford where many British actors and actresses started out. Did you always know you wanted to act professionally?
TH: I had a fantastic time at The Dragon. All I remember about my time there was that it was an absolute riot: I don't remember 'learning' anything, and yet I learned everything. It's an amazing place. It sounds cliché but I started acting by doing impersonations, and trying to make people laugh. I can remember a turning point. I was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999 with a school production of R. C Sheriff's JOURNEY'S END, I was eighteen years' old, and I felt a confidence I hadn't felt before: a will to do it, a need to do it; a hope that maybe I had something to contribute, something to offer, and a curiosity to explore.
Edinburgh Festival `99: Theatre Review
Thursday 26 August 1999 23:02
Laurence Hughes
The Independent Culture
Journey's End
Double Edge Drama RocketVenue @Theatre Arts Centre, Venue 16
Tackling this First World War drama in the Fringe, with a mostly very young cast, was fraught with danger - particularly in these cynical, post- Blackadder Goes Forth days. It is a tribute to the commitment and professionalism of this student-based group that they carried it off in a way that was genuinely gripping and moving. An intimate venue helped, inducing claustrophobia and heightening the sense of strain. Most poignantly, the actors were pretty much exactly of the age and, dare one say, class, of the lost generation they portrayed. The exception was the elderly officer, Osborne - "Uncle" - whose compassion and suppressed anguish were beautifully conveyed by Peter Broad. His performance, and a magnificently ferocious but vulnerable Stanhope from Tom Hiddleston, provided the emotional core of the play, but all the supporting roles were given with intelligence and conviction. A pacey production ensured all that suppressed emotion and tragedy did not weigh unbearably on the contemporary audience. Memorable.