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Cattrall & MacFadyen Star in Eyre's Private LivesDate: 23 October 2009
Sex and the City siren Kim Cattrall will return to the London stage in the new year to star opposite Matthew MacFadyen in Richard Eyre's new revival of Noel Coward’s classic 1929 comedy Private Lives, which will have a ten-week West End season at the Vaudeville Theatre from 3 March 2010 (previews from 24 February), following a fortnight’s preview at the Theatre Royal Bath (10 to 20 February).
Cattrall and MacFadyen play divorcees Amanda and Elyot, who find themselves both honeymooning with their new spouses in the same hotel in the South of France. When by chance they meet again across adjoining balconies, their insatiable feelings for each other are immediately rekindled. Without a care for scandal, new partners or memories of what drove them apart in the first place, they hurl themselves headlong into love and lust.
Kim Cattrall is best known for her role as femme-fatale Samantha Jones in American TV series and film spin-off of Sex and the City, for which she has won a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and received five Emmy Award nominations. Other film credits include the upcoming Roman Polanski political thriller The Ghost, Big Trouble in Little China, Police Academy and Bonfire of the Vanities.
Cattrall made her West End debut in 2005 playing the paralysed lead character in Peter Hall’s revival of Whose Life Is It Anyway?, which followed in 2006 with a production of David Mamet's The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse (See News, 14 Jul 2006). Her US stage credits include A View From The Bridge, Three Sisters, Miss Julie, The Misanthrope and Wild Honey (NT production). Born in Liverpool, Cattrall was recently the subject of BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?.
Matthew MacFadyen is best known as Mr Darcy in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice, and for his role as Tom Quinn in the BBC's Spooks. On stage, he played Prince Hal in the 2005 National Theatre production of Henry IV and in 2007 appeared in the premiere of The Pain and the Itch at the Royal Court. He is soon to appear as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Russell Crowe's forthcoming film, Robin Hood.
Five-time Olivier Award-winning director Richard Eyre was artistic director of the National Theatre from 1988 to 1997. His numerous theatre productions range from Guys and Dolls and Mary Poppins to works by Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, David Hare and Alan Bennett; most recently in London, his stage credits have included Simon Gray’s posthumous The Last Cigarette and Matt Charman’s The Observer. Eyre’s film work includes The Ploughman's Lunch, Iris, Stage Beauty and Notes on a Scandal.
Arguably Coward’s best-known play, Private Lives is frequently revived. Amongst the most recent London productions, the play was mounted as part of Hampstead Theatre’s 50th anniversary season this past January, starring Claire Price and Jasper Britton, and at the National Theatre with Juliet Stevenson and Anton Lesser in 1999.
Most successfully, Private Lives was last in the West End in 2001 in a multi award-winning Howard Davies production starring Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman, which subsequently transferred to Broadway. The new West End outing is produced by Duncan C Weldon, Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions.
- by Theo Bosanquet & Terri Paddock
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