Faye Fantarrow: Singer preparing to travel to US to begin potentially life-saving brain tumour treatment
Up-and-coming singer Faye Fantarrow is set to travel to California in the New Year to begin a pioneering and potentially life-saving treatment for a brain tumour.
The 20-year-old musician, from Sunderland, was diagnosed with an aggressive glioma tumour in August – having already survived leukaemia twice during her childhood.
While Faye has undergone radiotherapy in the UK, there is no cure here, and family and friends have been fundraising to collect £450,000 to cover the cost of a type of immunotherapy called CAR T-cell therapy and associated treatment in America.
After being signed by Eurythmics star Dave Stewart to his label just a few months before her diagnosis, both he and his bandmate Annie Lennox donated and the fundraising pot now stands at more than £200,000.
It means Faye has enough to cover the initial costs and is due to fly out to have cells collected at the City of Hope hospital in Duarte, Los Angeles County, early in January. However, she needs to keep fundraising to cover the remaining costs for the full process.
She will spend two weeks in the US before flying back to the UK to perform a gig at the end of the month – her first since her diagnosis.
“I’m really looking forward to having the initial cell collection to get the ball rolling,” she told Sky News. “For me personally, having the gig planned brings a sense of normality that I’ve been seeking for a long time.
“I’m very optimistic, but it’s also overwhelming. I’m looking forward to [beginning the treatment process] but it’s daunting too as I’ve been having this conversation for so long now. My overriding emotion right now though is feeling grateful, because without the donations and all the support I’ve had, this initial stage wouldn’t have been attainable.”
Faye finished her radiotherapy in October and says her consultant is pleased with its progress so far in keeping the growth of her tumours at bay.
Read more:
‘We cannot let Faye’s life end here’
What is CAR T-cell therapy?
The singer says the first stage of the US process in January will be to collect cells. After that, her tumours will be monitored in the UK before she returns to California for the full treatment.
CAR T-cell therapy is a “complex and specialist treatment”, according to Cancer Research UK. T-cells are a type of white blood cell.
“With this treatment, a specialist collects and makes a small change to your T-cells. After a few weeks, you have a drip containing these cells back into your bloodstream. The CAR T-cells then recognise and attack the cancer cells,” the charity says on its website.
Faye is hoping the radiotherapy treatment will have done enough to keep her tumours from growing until she can raise the full amount needed.
After finishing the course, she says she is generally feeling better and has increased energy, although still has “days of ups and downs”. However, she now feels well enough to perform once again and is looking forward to getting on stage.
“This will be the first gig since all this happened,” she said. “I think I feel well enough in myself now, and the cell collection I’m hoping will not be too intrusive.
“I feel it’s important to get on stage and pay forward my gratitude. I’m playing it as a kind of promise – this is what’s to come, something to look forward to in terms of my career.”
‘I cannot express how much I believe in Faye’
Faye is signed to Dave Stewart’s Bay Street Records label
Faye has been writing songs since she was a teenager, taking up the guitar after having a bone marrow transplant following her second leukaemia diagnosis.
The glioma tumour is believed to be a rare consequence of her previous cancer treatment.
In 2021, she was named the winner of the Alan Hull award for songwriting – a prize given annually in the North East in memory of the Lindisfarne founder – and she signed to Stewart’s Bay Street Records the following year.
“Faye is a brilliant young artist, a singer-songwriter in a class of her own,” Stewart previously told Sky News. “Unique writers like Faye come few and far between and I knew the minute I heard her voice she was extraordinary.
“We spent an amazing time together recording her new EP this summer only to be hit with this devastating news no more than a few weeks after we finished recording.
“I cannot express enough how much I believe in Faye and her talents as a singer and performer, but it’s her astute observations of the world around her put in the words that makes me believe she deserves to be heard for a long, long time.
“At only 20 years old she’s a national treasure in my mind already and hopefully she will become one in yours, too.”
The Faye Fantarrow & Friends gig will be held at The Fire Station in Sunderland on Friday 27 January. You can donate to the Fight For Faye fundraiser here.
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John David Washington says he felt like he had to conceal his desire to act because of the external expectations of him being the child of Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
He tells Sky News it took some time for him to pursue an acting career, choosing football instead to assert his “independence” and create his own “identity” separate from his famous family.
“I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life… but I was hiding it,” he said.
“I had to conceal that passion based on my relationship to the world and more specifically, my folks being in the industry, so I chose ball.
“I loved ball, but I was sort of hiding my love for the arts under a helmet – literally an American football helmet – and so when I wanted to become an actor, when I decided to pursue it, that was a big shock to some people.”
The 40-year-old actor says when he decided to pursue an acting career, he kept the decision quiet.
“Some people didn’t know I was even pursuing it professionally until I got a job,” he said.
John David with fellow actor Danielle Deadwyler. Pic: David Lee/ Netflix
Since switching to acting, John David has starred in a number of notable roles including the protagonist in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman and Joshua in The Creator.
He also led the stage revival of the 2022 Tony-nominated play The Piano Lesson on Broadway alongside Samuel L Jackson.
“He [Jackson] originated the role [I play] in 1987 at Yale with Lloyd Richards and August Wilson,” John David said.
“So it was of great importance for us to learn from both he and Michael Potts about August Wilson. It was a great blessing for me, I think, for all of us to have him present on set.”
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The Piano Lesson is the third August Wilson play to be adapted for the screen by Denzel Washington’s production company Mundy Lane Entertainment.
It is part of a pledge made by the Gladiator II actor to make all 10 of the playwright’s works into films.
The Netflix project is directed by another Washington family member, Malcolm, and stars most of the cast from the Broadway revival.
The Piano Lesson is Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut. Pic: Katia Washington/ Netflix
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the film centres on a family heirloom, a piano, that is etched with the carvings of their family history made by their enslaved ancestor.
Malcolm says he started reading the play for the first time during the pandemic and immediately wanted to be involved in the film adaptation.
“I think with this movie, reclamation of story and identity is so central to the theme and it’s something that’s central to my life where I both acknowledge the fertile ground that I was raised on and who I am today.
“That’s what Wining Boy [played by Michael Potts] really is trying to do, he’s trying to build on that legacy, so that’s a story that really resonated with me.”
The filmmaker added: “I take all the gifts that my ancestors laid in front of me, and I’m trying to build something for the next generation to pass down – all of their gifts, plus mine to the next generation and let them build on it.”
Malcolm has dedicated his directorial debut to his mother, Pauletta Washington. Pic: David Lee/Netflix
Malcolm says his goal was to put family at the forefront of the production. By dedicating his feature debut to “Mama”, he is acknowledging the dedication and sacrifices that mothers make for the growth of their families.
“There’s so much pointing to my mother in particular, who inspired this adaptation so much. I see so much of her life in Berniece’s character [played by Danielle Deadwyler] – and that became a guiding light for me in this adaptation,” he said.
“As we made this thing and started reconnecting with our ancestors, my mum became like a kind of representative of them.
“She’s the matriarch of our family. She tells me about my grandparents and great-grandparents and the line that I come from, and I see them in her.
“And when the movie ends, I want people to kind of have that moment of reflection for their own lives. So in dedicating it to her, I was trying to dedicate it to all mums everywhere.”
The Piano Lesson is now available on Netflix.
Blockbuster Wicked has landed the largest opening weekend of 2024 at Vue International.
The film, starring Oscar-nominated actress Cynthia Erivo and Grammy-winning pop star Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, surpassed both Gladiator II and Paddington In Peru.
It has also had the largest opening weekend for a stage musical adaptation in the cinema chain’s history.
A boss for Vue International said it had seen a “sea of pink and green” over the weekend.
Ariana Grande (left) as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in the film. Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Released on Friday, Wicked is up 60% on Les Miserables’ opening weekend in 2012 and three times larger than the 2022 film adaptation of Matilda.
Founder and chief executive of Vue International Tim Richards said: “Vue has seen a sea of pink and green over the opening weekend of Wicked, which has shown continued high demand for the big screen experience.
“We saw record-breaking pre-sales for Wicked, followed by a chart-topping opening weekend – the biggest for 2024.”
The film is the first of two parts, with the second expected in November next year.
Wicked and Gladiator II – known together as Glicked – have reportedly failed to beat out Barbenheimer, Barbie and Oppenheimer, in its own opening weekend last summer.
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Glicked brought in £215m in worldwide ticket sales – with Wicked making the majority of that.
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