Frank Langella & Michael Sheen
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Frost/Nixon with Sheen/Langella Moves to Gielgud

As previously tipped (See The Goss, 21 Sep 2006), following rave reviews, Michael Grandage’s world premiere production of Frost/Nixon will transfer directly from the Donmar Warehouse to the West End ahead of a subsequent Broadway transfer and planned screen adaptation. It opens for a limited three-month season at the Gielgud Theatre on 15 November 2006 (previews from 9 November), where it’s booking until 3 February 2007.

The play, which opened on 21 August (See News, 21 Aug 2006), finishes its sell-out run at the Donmar tomorrow (7 October 2006). TV screenwriter Peter Morgan’s debut stage play, inspired by the bruising 1977 interview in which British TV presenter David Frost tried to get the disgraced former US president Richard Nixon to apologise for his crimes.

With Nixon desperate to claw back some semblance of credibility after the Watergate scandal and Frost hoping to make the biggest career move of his life, the scene is set for an extraordinary confrontation, ending in Nixon’s public admission of his crimes after years of lies and subterfuge.

Michael Sheen stars as Frost and American Frank Langella (pictured with Sheen) as Nixon. Both stars will accompany the production to the West End. The rest of the Donmar cast – including Elliot Cowan, Corey Johnson, Kerry Shale, Lydia Leonard, Vincent Marzello, Rufus Wright, Kate Roscoe and Amerjit Deu - will also reprise their Donmar performances.

The transfer marks the third Donmar transfer under Grandage’s reign, following last autumn’s Schiller thriller Mary Stuart and, currently at Wyndham’s Theatre, where it just opened on 21 September 2006 (previews from 14 September), the revival of John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father, starring Derek Jacobi, which immediately preceded Frost/Nixon at the Donmar.

Frost/Nixon is designed by Christopher Oram, with video design by Jon Driscoll, lighting by Neil Austin and sound by Adam Cork. It’s produced in the West End by Matthew Byam Shaw.

Currently at the Gielgud, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s two-part adaptation of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales finishes its extended run on 4 November 2006. Next up at the Donmar is Josie Rourke’s new production David Mamet’s 1995 play The Cryptogram, starring Kim Cattrall and Douglas Henshall. It opens on 17 October 2006 (previews from 12 October) and continues until 25 November 2006 (See News, 2 Aug 2006).

- by Caroline Ansdell & Terri Paddock

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