John Simm as Hamlet (2010)
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Simm Returns to Sheffield in Climax of Anniversary Season

Sheffield Theatres artistic director Daniel Evans, currently in rehearsals for the forthcoming revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, has announced the final part of the company’s year long 40th anniversary season.

Highlights include a revival of Congreve’s The Way of the World, a season dedicated to the work of Michael Frayn, and a new production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal starring John Simm, who played Hamlet in the Crucible last year, as Jerry.

Sheffield Theatres has also announced today that it will become the new home of the International Student Drama Festival, which will be held from 22 to 30 June 2012.

Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Joseph K) will direct a new staging of William Congreve’s classic Restoration comedy The Way of the World in the Sheffield Crucible from 7 to 25 February 2012 (previews from 2 February).

The play, “about morals, money and everything in between”, centres on the good-living Mirabell, who must charm the formidable Lady Wishfort in order to marry the girl of his dreams.

It’s followed by concurrent stagings of three Michael Frayn plays: Copenhagen, which runs in the Lyceum from 29 February to 10 March directed by David Grindley; Benefactors, which runs in the Studio from 1 to 24 March directed by Charlotte Gwinner; and Democracy, which is revived in the Crucible from 8 to 31 March by director Paul Miller.

The Frayn season will also feature rehearsed readings of The Sneeze ( 9 March), Here (16 March), Wild Honey (23 March) and a reading of extracts of his novels and columns (30 March). And on 23 March there will be an In Conversation event with the writer himself.

Simm returns to Sheffield

The 40th anniversary season climaxes in the Crucible with a new revival of Harold Pinter’s popular play Betrayal, which runs from 22 May to 9 June 2012 (previews from 17 May). Directed by Nick Bagnall, the production will feature a return to the Crucible for Life on Mars star John Simm, who played Hamlet there last year.

Famously played backwards in time, Betrayal traces a seven-year affair between art gallery owner Emma and literary agent Jerry (Simm), the best friend of her publisher husband Robert, from its poignant end to its first illicit kiss.

Simm’s other stage work includes Elling (Bush Theatre and Trafalgar Studios) Speaking in Tongues at the Duke of York’s, Goldhawk Road (also at the Bush) and Danny Rule (Royal Court Theatre).

Rounding off the season in the Studio is Kaite O’Reilly’s LeanerFasterStronger, which premieres from 23 May to 2 June as part of Yorkshire’s Cultural Olympiad.

- by Theo Bosanquet

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