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Jones Lures Postlethwaite Back to London Stage

British film star Pete Postlethwaite will return to the London stage for the first time in a decade when he brings his acclaimed one-man show Scaramouche Jones to the fringe Riverside Studios. The production will have a strictly limited four-week season from 25 September to 19 October 2002.

After completing three films in 2001 (including Between Strangers with Sophia Loren, which premieres next month at the Venice Film Festival), Postlethwaite decided to take time out from the big screen to refocus on the stage. Earlier this year, he starred in the Manchester Royal Exchange's sell-out production of Pinter's The Homecoming and, following its world premiere at the Dublin Theatre Festival, took Scaramouche Jones on a three-month UK tour.

Postlethwaite's stage roles have numbered numerous productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Court and National Theatre, as well as in the West End - amongst them, Richard II, The Good Person of Sichuan, Funny Peculiar, Freezeblock Park and The Recruiting Officer. He last appeared on the London stage, opposite Alison Steadman and Jane Horrocks, in the National's 1992 production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.

But it's for his film roles that Postlethwaite has achieved international fame. These have included In the Name of the Father (for which he received an Oscar nomination), The Last of the Mohicans, The Usual Suspects, Brassed Off, Amistad, Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, Distant Voices Still Lives and, just released in the UK, The Shipping News.

Scaramouche Jones, a new play by Justin Butcher, is set on millennium eve, when ancient clown Scaramouche steps out from the circus ring to give his final performance. Peeling away his outer masks, he reflects on the fortunes of his life over the past century - from his birth in Trinidad, through North Africa and across Europe.

The play is directed by Rupert Goold and designed by Ashley Martin-Davis, with lighting by Mike Gunning and music and sound by Adam Cork. The London opening of Scaramouche Jones will be preceded by a short season of Postlethwaite's films at Riverside Studios Cinema.

- by Terri Paddock

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