Rowan Atkinson Leads Gray's Quartermaine Back to West End???

Could Rowan Atkinson be on his way back to the West End? The star, last seen on the London stage playing Fagin in the Theatre Royal Drury Lane production of Oliver! will lead a new revival of Simon Gray's Quartermaine’s Terms next year, Charles Spencer reports in today's Daily Telegraph.

Michael Codron, veteran West End producer and long-time Gray supporter, will present Quartermaine’s Terms - a show he first brought to the Queen's Theatre in 1981 starring Edward Fox and directed by Harold Pinter. Spencer has previously written that former National Theatre director Richard Eyre, whose recent credits include Betty Blue Eyes and The Last of the Duchess will helm the upcoming revival.

Quartermaine’s Terms, which follows an English Language teacher at a Cambridge private school for overseas students through the terms of the academic year, follows close on the heals of the London revival of Gray's Butley. Gray's 1971 play, which focuses on a rapier-tongued lecturer trying to cope with the strains of divorce and academia, was revived at the Duchess Theatre earlier this year starring The Wire's Dominic West.

Rowan Atkinson, who came to prominence in Not The Nine O'Clock News and Blackadder is perhaps best known as Mr Bean. Since its TV beginnings, the comedian has starred in two Mr Bean films as well as 2003 James Bond parody Johnny English, the sequel of which is due to be released next month. The youngest performer to have a one-man show in the West End, Atkinson's frequent early appearances also include The Secret Policeman's Ball alongside members of Monty Python. Most recently he played Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's 2009 revival of Oliver!, directed by Rupert Goold.

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	Original Story in the Daily Telegraph