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Kelly Joins Godot, Reopens at Haymarket 21 Jan

Matthew Kelly will join Sean Mathias’ partially recast revival of Waiting for Godot, when it returns in the new year to the West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket, where it is now confirmed to reopen on 21 January 2010 for a limited 11-week season.

Kelly takes over as Pozzo, the role previously played by Simon Callow, in the four-hander that also features Ian McKellen and Ronald Pickup reprising their roles as Estragon and Lucky, and, as previously reported (See News, 23 Nov 2009), Welshman Roger Rees returning to the London stage after a 20-year absence to take over the role of Vladimir, originally played by Patrick Stewart.

In Beckett’s 1955 classic, Estragon and Vladimir are two tramps who pass the time by a deserted road as they wait for the mysterious Godot. Mathias’ production was one of the hottest tickets this year at the Haymarket, where it first opened for an extended, sell-out season in May, following a regional tour. The production is designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, with lighting by Paul Pyant.

For Matthew Kelly, the new casting continues an incredible string of stage roles in London over the past year; it follows acclaimed performances from him in Victory at the Arcola, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Trafalgar Studios, Troilus and Cressida at the Globe and, just finished, Comedians at the Lyric Hammersmith. His many other theatre credits include Of Mice and Men, which won him the 2004 Best Actor Olivier.

Currently at the Haymarket, Sean Mathias’ production of Breakfast at Tiffany's, adapted from Truman Capote’s novella by Samuel Adamson and starring Anna Friel as Holly Golightly, is due to finish its season as scheduled on 9 January 2010.

- by Terri Paddock

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