Billie Piper | ChicanePictures

billie piper

Billie Piper’s performance as Paige Britain, the ambitious tabloid news editor, garnered unanimous praise when the National Theatre staged Richard Bean’s GREAT BRITAIN last summer. Described by The Telegraph’s theatre critic Dominic Cavendish as “a sultry, stiletto-stamping schemer”, Billie’s character took the lead in a timely look at the tangled relationship between the press, politicians and the police. The play was in secret rehearsals for months and was only announced after the key verdicts in the phone-hacking trial were delivered. It premiered without a preview period on 30 June 2014 at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre. Paul Taylor called it a “farce with fangs” in The Independent, stating Billie’s performance as “excellent”-a description shared by all the major critics.

This sketch is a montage-a page on Paige-so to speak..I mean draw. Billie signed and returned it in the mail.

Playwright Neil LaBute is haunted the American obsession with physical beauty. His 2008 play Reasons To Be Pretty was successfully revived in London at the Almeida Theatre in late 2011 with a cast including award-winning British actress Billie Piper. It examines our perception of beauty and asks whether it is as much of a curse to be conventionally attractive as it is to be considered ugly. It’s the final intstallment of his trilogy about society’s obsession with looks, following The Shape of Things which premiered at the Almeida in 2001, and Fat Pig which was a West End hit in 2008.

Billie, expecting her second child, played pregnant supermarket security guard Carly who is worried she may be losing the affections of her partner Kent who is besotted by a ‘stunner’ working in another part of the factory. The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer said that the play “…is blessed with a heart wrenching turn from the wonderful Billie Piper.”

LaBute has written a sequel Reasons To Be Happy which premiered in June 2013 at the MCC Theatre in New York.

Billie has just completed the premiere season of Richard Bean’s latest satire Great Britain to rave reviews at the National before it transferred to the West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket with Lucy Punch replacing Billie in the lead role.