Walters Makes Stage Comeback after 10 Years

Julie Walters returns this summer to the London stage for the first time in nearly ten years. Walters will star, with Catherine McCormack, in the National Theatre's production of Arthur Miller's 1947 classic drama All My Sons which opens at the NT Cottesloe Theatre on 6 July 2000.

Walters - who is perhaps best known for her starring role, opposite Michael Caine, in the 1983 film Educating Rita, based on Willy Russell's play - was last seen on stage at the Playhouse in Sir Peter Hall's 1991 production of Rose Tattoo. Her other stage credits include Fool for Love at the National Theatre in 1984, while her other film and television credits include Dinnerladies, GBH, Stepping Out, Intimate Relations and Prick Up Your Ears.

In All My Sons, set in America just after World War II, Walters plays the wife of successful manufacturer Joe Keller, who is harbouring a horrible secret. When rushing to meet a wartime order for the US Army, Joe knowingly delivered a lot of defective airplane parts which resulted in the planes crashing, killing 21 men. Joe escaped punishment by framing his business partner for the crime but, as the play begins, his son is preparing to marry the partner's daughter, forcing Joe to re-evaluate the whole sorry affair and his culpability.

James Hazeldine, who starred in the Almeida's 1998 production of The Iceman Cometh, plays Joe, with Ben Daniels as his son and McCormack as the daughter-in-law to-be. McCormack made her stage debut last year in Anna Weiss at the Whitehall Theatre, but is best known for her film roles in Braveheart, The Land Girls, The Honest Courtesan (Dangerous Beauty in the US) and This Year's Love.

All My Sons is directed by Howard Davies and designed by William Dudley. Davies won the Laurence Olivier and Evening Standard awards for Best Director for the Almeida's The Iceman Cometh, with Kevin Spacey and Hazeldine, which subsequently transferred to Broadway. His other stage credits include Collected Stories, at the Haymarket last year with Helen Mirren, and, for the National, Flight, Chips with Everything, Mary Stuart and The Crucible.

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