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Screenwriter, composer and lyricist Kit Hesketh-Harvey dies aged 65 | Culture

Screenwriter, composer and lyricist Package Hesketh-Harvey dies aged 65 | Tradition

Package Hesketh-Harvey, the British composer and screenwriter who counted the royals amongst his followers, has died on the age of 65.

The entertainer has had a protracted and diversified profession working in theatre, tv, music and movie. Hesketh-Harvey has labored on BBC reveals together with the hit sitcom The Vicar of Dibley and was a part of the long-running cabaret duo Package and the Widow alongside pianist Richard Sisson till 2012. He wrote the screenplay for the 1987 movie Service provider Ivory Moritzduring which a younger Hugh Grant starred, and was adept at taking part in one Variety of pantomime villains. King Charles is claimed to have been an incredible admirer of his work.

Born Christopher John “Package” Hesketh-Harvey in former Nyasaland (now Malawi), he was educated at Canterbury Cathedral after which at Tonbridge College in Kent. He studied English Literature at Clare School, Cambridge, the place he was additionally a member of the Footlights Drama Membership. He later studied with Stephen Sondheim whereas he was visiting professor at Oxford College.

Hesketh-Harvey and his then-wife Catherine Rabett in 2004.
Hesketh-Harvey and his then-wife Catherine Rabett in 2004. Picture: Judy Totton/REX/Shutterstock

A eager lyricist, Hesketh-Harvey additionally had an enormous data of classical music and opera. In 2010 he wrote an article for The Guardian in regards to the challenges he confronted whereas engaged on a screenplay Monteverdi’s flying circus, a stage present in regards to the final days of the daddy of contemporary opera: “His musical vocabulary is mysterious to trendy ears. There are lengthy recitative episodes, all too typically accompanied by stressed coughing within the stalls. The instrumentation and the ornamentation are uncommon. The three- or four-hour opera situations are much less accessible to audiences used to the hardier, later Italians, Verdi and Puccini.” His model of Donizetti’s comedian opera Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali – which he had titled Viva la Diva – was carried out on the Buxton Worldwide Competition in the summertime of 2022.

Till their current divorce, Hesketh-Harvey was married to actress Catherine Rabett, a founding member of dance group Sizzling Gossip and a former buddy of Prince Andrew. The couple break up in 2021 after 35 years of marriage. That they had two youngsters, Augusta and Rollo. Hesketh-Harvey was additionally the brother of the previous Immediately editor Sarah Sands. Chatting with the Impartial, Sands stated: “Package was wonderful – good, unique, humorous, type. The final time I noticed him he was busy mapping pilgrim routes via Norfolk; there was all the time the subsequent journey, the subsequent joke. He gave and gave and gave.”

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