As we’ve been telling you, there was to be a benefit charity concert tonight in London that was to feature several of the adult actors from the Harry Potter films. Early photos from the “Music from the Movies” benefit to help Leukemia research are now online. Getty now has early photos of Alan Rickman (Professor Snape), Emma Thompson (Professor Trelawney), Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid), Imelda Staunton (Professor Umbridge), Kenneth Branagh (Professor Lockhart), Goblet of Fire director Mike Newell, and film composer Patrick Doyle all online here.
UPDATE: We have some additional photos, here in our galleries.
I was at the concert last night, and it was an amazing night, such a great atmosphere. All of the guest presenters had a lovely story to tell and at the end when they all came out onto the stage, the feeling of these people being like a family was wonderful.
Like Zoe, my wife and I were privileged to be at the concert, thanks to the offer publicised by Lealy last week. Our seats were close to the stage, on the right near the London Symphony Orchestra’s double basses, so we could see really well those who entered from our side, including Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton and Robbie Coltrane.
It was indeed a fantastic atmosphere and a wonderful concert, the highlights for us being the accompanied Shakespeare speeches:
Emma Thompson launched the evening with ‘Hey Nonny Nonny’ from ‘Much Ado’, barefoot and with delightful whimsicality, handing out grapes to members of the orchestra!
Derek Jacobi ended the first half with a tour de force monologue from Hamlet (not ‘To Be or Not To Be’), somehow competing with the orchestra’s fortissimo.
Kenneth Branagh at the end gave us his St Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V – I have rarely seen my wife so rapt!
Most of the other stars introduced pieces of Pat Doyle’s film music. He is a lovely and very funny man and it’s easy to see how they’ve loved working with him. Mike Newell introduced music from Goblet of Fire, the orchestra playing the Yule Ball waltz and ‘Harry in Winter’; I now understand better why this music is my favourite of all the movies so far, even if they didn’t play my favourite pieces: Hogwarts March and Hogwarts Hymn.
And be reassured BellaSnape: Rickman and the others took on their HP roles for the duration; only death, disease or disaster will stop them finishing the course.
I had a wonderful time on Sunday evening. Patrick Doyle has been my favourite composer for a long time (it is coincidence that he did GoF). Such beautiful music, and a beautiful night. Highlight of the evening was Alan Rickman. Every moment that he was delighting us with that wonderful voice of his was gold dust.
The performances were fantastic, all the presenters told great stories and I was front row in one of the boxes – very close to the stage.
"If I had been open with you, Harry, as I should have been, you would have known a long time ago that Voldemort might try and lure you to the Department of Mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. And Sirius would not hav
Wonder if any of them will be interviewed about HP tonight… hope so!