FINAL ACT is based on Noel Coward's play "Waiting in the Wings". Even the smallest events turn into mind-blowing dramas at The Set, a retirement home for former actresses in England. Jealousy and madness flare into a firework display of toxicity when ex-primadonna Lotta Henderson (Birgitte Federspiel) moves in. A slap in the face of The Set's leading star in her own eyes, May Davenport (Mime Fønss), who has had a lifelong rivalry with Lotta both on stage and off. The daily dramas reach dizzying heights when a scandalous journalist (Anne Marie Helger) gains access like a wolf in sheep's clothing. A stunt that has a not-so-clever connection to the ladies' burning desire to be granted a veranda. The matter is raised to the highest level of the home's tough board of directors, and The Set's secretary Perry (Holger Juul Hansen) comes under justified suspicion of skulduggery. But this is where May Davenport's diva talent comes in as a sure trump card...
Acting
Federspiel and Fønss serve theatrical warfare on a silver platter.
Costume
Elderly glamour that screams 'I was somebody.'
Director
Edward Fleming
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Noël Coward's 1960 play 'Waiting in the Wings' was his first to focus entirely on women's stories, written partly as love letter to the actresses he'd worked with for decades.
Birgitte Federspiel, playing faded prima donna Lotta, was already Denmark's most celebrated stage actress—essentially playing her own feared future.
DK
