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Cake, Barber & Hodge Headline Globe's Season

Jonathan Cake (pictured) will return to the London stage this summer after a five-year absence to take the title role in Coriolanus, directed by Dominic Dromgoole in his inaugural season at Shakespeare’s Globe. In what Dromgoole describes as “a new level of casting for the Globe”, Frances Barber and Douglas Hodge will also make their Bankside debuts this summer, while other names confirmed to date include Robin Soans, Shaun Parkes and Sarah Woodward.

Cake was last seen playing opposite Fiona Shaw in the West End production of Medea, which subsequently transferred to New York and toured the US. His other stage credits include Baby Doll, Mill on the Floss and, earlier in his career for the RSC, Tamburlaine, The Odyssey, As You Like It and The Beggar’s Opera. His screen credits include The Government Inspector, Empire, Fallen, The Swap, Dance to the Music of Time and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Frances Barber - who will play Cleopatra in Dromgoole’s production of Antony and Cleopatra - was Whatsonstage.com Award-nominated for her role as Nurse Ratched opposite Christian Slater’s in the 2004 West End run of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Her many other stage credits include Tales from the Vienna Woods, Closer, Closer to Heaven and Insignificance.

Douglas Hodge - who will play the title role in Titus Andronicus, directed by Lucy Bailey – recently completed his West End run as Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, for which he was both Whatsonstage.com and Olivier-nominated. Prior to his musical crossover, Hodge was best known as one of the UK’s foremost performers of the work of Harold Pinter, having appeared in major productions of Pinter's The Collection, The Lover, Betrayal, Moonlight, No Man's Land and The Caretaker. His other recent London stage credits include Three Sisters (West End) and Dumb Show (Royal Court). Also an accomplished director, Hodge’s revival of See How They Run has just launched an extensive UK tour.

The open-air Globe’s annual summer season kicks off with Coriolanus, running from 10 May to 13 August 2006 (previews from 5 May). In it, Cake will be joined by Robin Soans (The Holy Terror, Anything Goes, Love’s Labours Lost, Push Up, author of Talking to Terrorists, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook) as Menenius and Shaun Parkes (Elmina’s Kitchen, Blue/Orange on stage, Colour Me Kubrick, The Mummy Returns on screen. The production is designed by Mike Britton.

It’s joined in repertory, from 30 May to 6 October 2006 (previews from 20 May), by Bailey’s production of Titus Andronicus, designed by William Dudley (The Woman in White, The Coast of Utopia) and starring Hodge. Dromgoole’s Barber-headed production of Antony and Cleopatra, also designed by Mike Britton, then runs from 5 July to 8 October 2006 (previews from 25 June).

The fourth Shakespeare, directed by Christopher Luscombe and running 1 August to 7 October 2007 (previews from 22 July), will be The Comedy of Errors, in which Sarah Woodward. Woodward has previously been seen in the Globe’s 2004 production of Much Ado About Nothing. Her many other stage credits include Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Real Thing, Wild Oats and Tom and Clem, for which she won an Olivier.

The final two plays in the Globe’s 2006 season will be world premieres: Simon Bent’s Under the Black Flag, directed by Paines Plough’s Roxana Silbert and running from 18 July (previews from 9 July) to 12 August 2006; and Howard Brenton’s In Extremis, running from 5 September to 7 October 2006 (previews from 27 August), for which a creative team have not yet been announced. No further casting has yet been confirmed.

- by Terri Paddock

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