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| Dervla Kirwan in Dangerous Corner, photo by Keith Pattison |
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Priestley Returns to Garrick with WYP's CornerDate: 15 October 2001
The current resident of the West End's Garrick Theatre, Alistair Beaton's Feelgood, ousted one JB Priestley classic (An Inspector Calls) back in April but now it's submitting to Priestley pressure once again. As already announced, Feelgood will close at the end of this month, and just confirmed, it will quickly be replaced by a new revival of Priestley's 1932 play, Dangerous Corner. The West Yorkshire playhouse production, starring Irish actress Dervla Kirwan, is due to open at the Garrick on 6 November 2001.
Dangerous Corner has just finished a short run (7 September to 13 October) in Leeds as part of the theatre's JB Priestley season spearheaded by Star Trek's Patrick Stewart (who starred in the season opener, Johnson Over Jordan and WYP artistic director Jude Kelly.
The story is set in a stylish country retreat, where owners Freda and Robert are hosting a dinner party for their successful friends and colleagues, all executives at a transatlantic publishing company. Then a cigarette box and ill-considered remark spark off a series of unwelcome revelations.
Several of the cast are familiar television faces in Britain. Kirwan has starred in Ballykissangel and the recent Hearts and Bones, while co-stars Patrick Robinson and Jacqueline Pearce were regulars on Casualty and Blake's 7 respectively. Also in the cast are Rupert Penry-Jones (whose many stage credits include Chips with Everything, The Play about the Baby and numerous RSC productions), Anna Wilson-Jones, Katie Foster-Barnes and Steve John Shepherd. Dangerous Corner is directed by Laurie Sansom and designed by Jessica Curtis.
Feelgood closes on 27 October. Meanwhile its Garrick predecessor, which ran at the theatre for nearly six years, has reopened to warm reviews at the West End's Playhouse Theatre. Stephen Daldry’s production of An Inspector Calls originally opened at the National Theatre in 1991 and has received 19 major awards from during its runs here in London and on Broadway.
- by Terri Paddock
