Theatre News

Hayley Atwell stars in Pride revival at Trafalgar Studios

Alexi Kaye Campbell’s 2008 play will be revived by its original director Jamie Lloyd as part of his four-play season at Trafalgar Studios

Hayley Atwell, Harry Hadden-Paton, Al Weaver and Mathew Horne are set to star in a West End revival of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride.

The production will open on 8 August 2013 at Trafalgar Studios, directed by Jamie Lloyd as part of his four-play residency at the venue.

Hayley Atwell in The Faith Machine (2011)
Hayley Atwell in The Faith Machine (2011)

Lloyd directed the original production of The Pride, Campbell’s debut play, at the Royal Court in 2008.

Speaking to WhatsOnStage, Campbell said: “Jamie’s original production was stunning but the play was seen by very few people because it had a short run in a small theatre. So to be bringing it back to a London audience makes me very happy indeed.

“And what is especially exciting is that because it’s been a good five years and we have a whole new cast Jamie will be revisiting the play from scratch, not just re-staging the original version.”

Set in London, the play charts the progression of the gay rights movement from the repression of the fifties to the present day through a love triangle that unfolds differently across the time periods.

Atwell will play Sylvia, a former actress who is married to estate agent Philip (Hadden-Paton).

“It’s about identity and repression,” she told the Daily Mail. “She had the feminine quality of taking her own pain and putting it aside, as she watches her marriage break down.”

Atwell renews her working relationship with Lloyd and Campbell having starred in the premiere of Campbell’s The Faith Machine at the Royal Court in 2011.

Mathew Horne returns to Trafalgar Studios where he made his stage acting debut in a revival of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane in 2009.

Harry Hadden-Paton’s recent credits include Jamie Lloyd’s production of She Stoops to Conquer at the National last year. Al Weaver has also previously worked with Lloyd, on his revival of John Osborne’s Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse in 2011.

The Pride follows The Hothouse at Trafalgar Studios, which has been reconfigured into an in-the-round arrangement for the Lloyd season.

Jamie Lloyd said: “My hope is that each production in the Trafalgar Transformed season engages directly with the world outside the theatre’s walls. Entering into the advancing debate about equal marriage, I am thrilled to announce the third production in the season – the West End premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s modern masterpiece, The Pride. The production features an outstanding quartet of young, British acting talent.”