Servant Tours 10 Cities Prior to West End
Date: 2 October 2000
Lee Hall's adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's 18th-century comedy A Servant to Two Masters, directed by Tim Supple, begins an eleven-week regional tour this week prior to a return to the capital in December.
The tour opens in Bromley and continues to nine other cities before a limited seven-week season at the West End's New Ambassadors Theatre from 14 December 2000 (previews from 12 December).
Jason Watkins revives his acclaimed performance as Truffuldino, the wily, underpaid Italian servant who ends up in one day with two jobs. But though two jobs mean twice as much money and twice as much food, they also mean twice as much work. Luckily, his two masters are just as busy and very confused.
The Royal Shakespeare Company production premiered in Stratford last year before transferring to the Young Vic for a sell-out London run in February.
Lee Hall, one of Britain's hottest young playwrights, has had an incredible four productions in London this year. In addition to A Servant to Two Masters, his black comedy Cooking with Elvis, starring comedian Frank Skinner, had a five-month run at the Whitehall, where it recently closed, and his adaptation of his acclaimed radio play, Spoonface Steinberg, received a three-week run at the New Ambassadors in January while his adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, produced by Shared Experience, played there in March.
A Servant to Two Masters will be Hall's third play at the New Ambassadors in under 12 months. His previous theatre credits include the much lauded Mr Puntila and His Man Matti, another Brecht adaptation that was co-produced by the Right Size and the Almeida Theatre.
A Servant to Two Masters is designed by Robert Innes Hopkins with lighting by Paul Anderson and sound by Andrea J Cox. The tour is sponsored by Barclays Stage Partners. Following Bromley, the production visits Brighton, Milton Keynes, Malvern, Richmond, Woking, Edinburgh, Bath, Cambridge and Poole.
