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Fearon's Pericles Ends RSC Roundhouse Season

Casting has now been confirmed for the Royal Shakespeare Company's final production in its limited season of the bard's work at the Roundhouse in Camden, north London. Pericles - directed by outgoing RSC artistic director Adrian Noble and running from 5 to 13 July 2002 (previews from 28 June) - will complete the three-strong repertoire which opened on 28 March with The Winter's Tale and continued with The Tempest.

Ray Fearon will star in the title role of the new production. Since first working with the company in 1993, Fearon's many RSC productions have included Moby Dick, Murder in the Cathedral, The White Devil, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Amongst his recent film and TV credits are Outside the Rules, As If and Harry Potter.

Fearon is joined in the cast of Pericles by Kananu Kirimi, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Lauren Ward, Jude Akuwudike, Keith Bartlett, Tom Beard, Geoff Francis, Roger Frost, Simon Gregor, Brian Protheroe, Rolf Saxon and James Telfer. The production is designed by Peter McKintosh, with sound by Mic Pool, movement by Sue Lefton, music by Shaun Davey and lighting by Jean Kalman.

The current season marked the RSC's first appearance at the Roundhouse in 33 years. Formerly a railway turning shed, the Roundhouse was a busy concert venue in the 1960s. It fell into disuse in subsequent decades but, more recently, has become popular for alternative theatrical stagings such as De La Guarda and a big-top Oh What a Lovely War. The RSC has also capitalised on the flexibility of the space with its promenade productions.

Outside of London, the RSC has also finalised its autumn/winter productions for Stratford. At the Swan theatre, it will mount two new Shakespeare productions in repertory: The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Rachel Kavanaugh and running from 23 October 2002 to 25 January 2003, and Coriolanus, playing 14 November 2002 to 25 January 2003. Meanwhile, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre will host a return of Adrian Noble's popular staging of CS Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, now a Christmas season staple, running this year from 21 November 2002 to 9 February 2003.

- by Terri Paddock

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