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Cast: Cohu Speaks, Dreyfus & Crowley Breakfast

Emmy Award winner Lucy Cohu will make her West End debut when she joins fellow screen stars John Simm, Ian Hart and Kerry Fox in the West End premiere of Andrew Bovell’s 1996 emotional thriller Speaking in Tongues (See News, 29 Jun 2009). The production, directed by Toby Frow, opens at the Duke of York’s Theatre on 28 September 2009 (previews from 18 September).

In Speaking in Tongues, which was made into the 2001 film Lantana, nine parallel lives - interlocked by four infidelities, one missing person and a mysterious stiletto - are interwoven through a fragmented series of confessionals, interrogations and ‘split-screen’ scenes, all drawn together by the investigations of detective Leon Zat (Simm).

Cohu plays two roles: Leon’s wife Sonja, and Valerie, a therapist whose disappearance Leon investigates. Currently appearing on TV in Torchwood, Cohu last year won the Emmy for Best Actress for Forgiven and was also Emmy and BAFTA nominated for her title role as Princess Margaret in The Queen’s Sister. Her film credits include Gosford Park and Becoming Jane, while on stage, she’s appeared in productions of Macbeth and School for Scandal.

Australian playwright Andrew Bovell’s latest play When the Rain Stops Falling was mounted earlier this year at the Almeida Theatre, while director Toby Frow helmed an award-winning production of his Ship of Fools at the fringe Theatre 503 last year. Speaking in Tongues is produced by Blue Horizon Productions and Jessica de Rothschild’s Sweet Pea Productions. in which Anna Friel makes her West End debut as Holly Golightly, the part immortalised in the 1961 film classic by Audrey Hepburn - will be't

In other West End play casting news, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket (See News, 15 May 2009), James Dreyfus, Suzanne Bertish, Dermot Crowley and John Ramm will join Anna Friel and Joseph Cross in the new stage version of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany's, which is adapted by Samuel Adamson and directed by Sean Mathias. The second offering in the theatre’s second season of in-house productions, it runs from 29 September 2009 to 9 January 2010 (previews from 9 September).

In 1940s New York, a struggling young writer moves into a Manhattan apartment building and soon becomes captivated by his charming and beautiful neighbour, Holly Golightly (Friel), whose public persona differs from her vulnerable private self. With her string of rich suitors, will the penniless writer “Fred” (Cross) succeed in capturing the heart of this good-time girl?

The full cast also includes: James Bradshaw, Gwendoline Christie, Paul Courtney Hyu, Felix D’Alviella, Nicholas Goh, Annie Hemingway, Sam Hoare, Natalie Klamar and David Phelan. Breakfast at Tiffany's is designed by Anthony Ward, presented by Chambord, and is produced by Colin Ingram by arrangement with the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company.

This is the first time that the Truman Capote Literary Trust has permitted a dramatic stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. A Broadway musical version of the story, starring Mary Tyler Moore as Holly, was a notorious flop in 1966; it never officially opened, closing after just four preview performances. Though Adamson draws more on the original source of Truman Capote’s 1958 novella, “Moon River”, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s Oscar-winning song from Blake Edwards’ famous 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn, will be included in the stage version.

- by Terri Paddock

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