McKellen & Rickman Join Judi in Stratford? Maybe Not!
Date: 11 July 2003
The Royal Shakespeare Company's 2004 season at Stratford is shaping up to be a real corker. Following the announcement of Antony Sher's Iago and Dame Judi Dench's return to the bard's home after nearly 25 years (See Today's News), we hear some more exciting casting whispers. Amongst the most titillating are: Sir Ian McKellen playing King Lear under the direction of former artistic director Adrian Noble; Greg Hicks, currently starring in the company's Coriolanus in the West End, taking another title as Macbeth; and Alan Rickman leading a Spanish Golden Age season curated by Laurence Boswell. And here we were thinking the 2003 Festival season - featuring the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Henry Goodman, Emma Fielding, Alexandra Gilbreath, Jasper Britton, David Bradley, Anton Lesser and Daniel Evans - was going to be hard to top! London base or not, the company's recently installed artistic director Michael Boyd is obviously doing something right. Long may the good news continue.
UPDATED: Ah well, in hindsight, it probably was too good to all be true. A few hours after we posted the above paragraph, RSC casting director John Cannon called us to set the record straight. Apparently, however wishfully the McKellen and Rickman appointments may be talked about outside the company, these are not on the cards. That said, the Boswell Spanish series will indeed feature and Greg Hicks' Macbeth is likely. All in all, it's still looking like a corker.
Got some goss? Contact gossip@whatsonstage.com
Related Content
