Linda Bassett
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Cast: Full Lughnasa Company, Bassett Leads Stone

Full casting has been announced for the Old Vic's revival of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, which runs from 5 March to 9 May 2009 (previews from 26 February), in the recently reconfigured main house CQS space.

Joining the previously announced principals Niamh Cusack, Andrea Corr, Michelle Fairley and Susan Lynch (See News, 22 Oct 2008) are Simone Kirby (Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Don Carlos), Finbar Lynch (Not About Nightingales, The Hothouse), Peter McDonald (Channel 4's Green Wing, Nocturne) and Jo Stone-Fewings (The 39 Steps, The Country Wife).

Set in 1930s rural Ireland, Dancing at Lughnasa paints a touching portrait of the loves and losses of the five Mundy sisters. After first being seen at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the play had its UK premiere at the National in 1990 before transferring on to the West End and Broadway, winning Best Play prizes at the Evening Standard, Laurence Olivier and Tony Awards. This is its first major London production since.

Dancing at Lughnasa is directed in-the-round in the Old Vic's new CQS Space (which was created in the main house for the recent run of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests) by Anna Mackmin, who recently directed David Eldridge's Under the Blue Sky in the West End. It's designed by Lez Bortherston, with lighting by Paule Constable and choreography by Scarlett Mackmin.  

In other play casting updates:

- by Theo Bosanquet

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