Richard Curtis
- 68 years old
- English
- Writer, director, producer and executive producer
Press clippings Page 19
Fortune vomits on my eiderdown yet again
News that Blackadder will return to our screens this Christmas with a new documentary has produced a level of national salivation absent from pop culture since George Lucas stamped on the dreams of Star Wars fans.
Stephen Armstrong, The Guardian, 26th November 2008Actually, love isn't always quite enough
The film's form has been compared with Robert Altman's multi-story movies like Short Cuts but what it more closely resembles is the slick Terence Rattigan movie The VIPs which links the fates of various well-heeled types in an exclusive lounge at London airport. Love Actually nods to Rattigan's portmanteau film by beginning and ending with characters reuniting and embracing at Heathrow.
Philip French, The Observer, 23rd November 2003Love Actually
You can almost see Curtis pressing the emotional buttons, but he does it so well you won't care. Warm, bittersweet and hilarious, this is lovely, actually. Prepare to be smitten.
Nev Pierce, BBC, 20th November 2003Love Actually
There are laughs laced with feeling here, but the deft screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill) dilutes the impact by tossing in more and more stories.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, 3rd November 2003Thankfully, they more or less pulled it off; but it's doubtful whether it could - and should - happen again. For Curtis and Elton seem almost too preoccupied, or lazy, or indifferent, to sustain any kind of rekindled comic genius for a whole new series of Blackadder anymore - you sense that half an hour is more or less the limit.
Ian Jones, Off The Telly, 1st October 2000Meanwhile The Vicar Of Dibley (BBC1) was holding a service for animals, which offered Richard Curtis ample scope for his favourite big job jokes. The series has been, like the vicar, bumpy in bits but, on the whole, fresh and funny. And it's extremely decent of me to say so as one of Curtis's big job jokes has put me off Twiglets completely. A serious matter at Christmas when I am offered nothing else.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 16th December 1994In The Vicar Of Dibley (BBC1) the parish invited Elton John to open their fair but found they had got Reg Dwight, a musician fated to see people's faces fall ("The blues is what I sing."). Anyway this blonde turned up and everyone seemed delighted. Apparently it was Kylie Minogue. Well, I didn't know. I saw Elton John in the street once wearing pink striped pyjamas. You know where you are with Elton.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 25th November 1994The writer is Richard Curtis (Blackadder, Four Weddings And A Funeral). When someone writes a solemn thesis on his religious influences, I will put in a strong argument for Wodehouse and a weak but obstinate one for All Gas and Gaiters.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 11th November 1994Blackadder (BBC1) is back, this time in the Regency period as gentleman's gentleman to the first gentleman of Europe. Rather extravagant laughter from an audience of close friends, kookaburras and people whose vests tickle.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 18th September 1987The Atkinson People is a rare attempt to present sustained, intelligent satire. [...] Writers Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis had an acute ear for the gently barbed generosity with which grand old men of the theatre often express themselves, and for the dialogue they perform.
Val Arnold-Forster, The Guardian, 27th April 1979