Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993 TAG: 9304170435
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY BUCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
REDGRAVE PLAYS REPORTER WHO FALLS FROM GRACE
"My character Maggie is on a British show sort of like `60 Minutes,' " Lynn Redgrave said of the newswoman she plays in the PBS "Masterpiece Theatre" drama "Calling the Shots.""She does the gritty stories, the politics, whatever's difficult and controversial. She's an aggressive reporter with the highest of intentions who believes she can change things."
Then she stumbles onto a story that turns her into the victim of a stalker.
"Calling the Shots" will air in three one-hour episodes over successive Sundays, beginning this Sunday (at 9 p.m. on WBRA-Channel 15).
It's a rare return to work in England for Redgrave, who left there in 1974.
She's a fourth-generation member of the Redgrave acting family, the daughter of the late Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson and the sister of Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave. Fifth-generation actors are her daughter, Kelly Clark, who, appropriately, plays her daughter in "Calling the Shots," Vanessa's daughters Natasha and Joely Richardson, and Corin's daughter Jemma Redgrave.
Redgrave said her mother appears "endlessly" on "Masterpiece Theatre," and she herself was in the six-part series of stories called "Vienna" in 1975.
Meanwhile, she is Broadway bound with her one-woman tribute to her father, "Shakespeare For My Father," directed by her husband, John Clark. She began a tour across the country starting in California in February.
In "Calling the Shots," Redgrave said her character is being pushed into doing soft stories by a new network chief.
"She's doing a piece on health clubs when she stumbles upon a date rape and changes her story. While she has the best intentions, she invades the privacy of the victim and perpetrator. She, in turn, becomes a victim of her own unscrupulous tactics. A stalker invades her own privacy in a way that is quite terrifying. It's sort of a psychological rape. This says something about television. It shows how someone with good motives, who thinks she's above the ratings, subverts her material to make her point. The accused rapist is driven to suicide, then she loses everything.
"It's a fascinating character," said Redgrave. "I've never played anyone quite like her. She's very volatile, very aggressive. But she's also very private. She has a couple of skeletons in her closet."