Theatre News

Cast: O’Neill Bridge, Evans Pride & Questioning

Olivier Award-winning actor Con O’Neill will make his Manchester Royal Exchange debut in the theatre’s upcoming production of Arthur Miller‘s A View from the Bridge from 23 May (previews from 18 May) to 25 June 2011.

O’Neill, whose extensive stage and TV credits include Prick Up Your Ears at the Comedy Theatre, The Caretaker for the Crucible and the Tricycle, and Mother Molly’s Clap House at the National Theatre, won an Olivier Award for his performance in Blood Brothers.

Set in 1950s Brooklyn, A View from the Bridge tells the story of Eddie Carbone – a longshoreman whose position in his home is threatened by the arrival of his wife’s young cousins from Sicily.

O’Neill is joined in the cast by Ian Redford whose previous theatre credits include playing Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus and Creon in Antigone for the Royal Exchange.

The full cast for the production have been announced as Alexander Andreou, Anna Francolini, Chris Jack, Nicholas Mai, Leila Mimmack, Ronan Raftery, Guy Rhys and Nitzan Sharron. The cast will also include Abas Eljanabi, Qas Hamid and Mohamad Aljarrah – members of the Royal Exchange’s international community theatre group The World Wide Workshop, which the theatre says will places the contemporary immigrant experience into the context of that of immigrant characters in Miller’s play.

The production is directed by Royal Exchange artistic director Sarah Frankcom who helmed the multi-award-winning national tour of Punk Rock, co-produced with the Lyric Hammersmith, and the Bruntwood Prize-winning Winterlong which was seen at the Soho Theatre.

A View from the Bridge has design by James Cotterill, lighting by Johanna Town and sound by Pete Rice.


Full casting has been announced for Richard Wilson‘s production of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride at Sheffield’s Studio Theatre. Claire Price, Jay Simpson and Jamie Sives join the previously announced Daniel Evans, Sheffield Theatre’s artistic director, who will play Oliver.

Campbell’s debut play The Pride was produced for the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 2008 and earned him the Critics’ Circle Prize for Most Promising Playwright. A candid and heartbreaking exploration of what happens between men and women, the play is about loyalty, loss and having the courage to stand up for who you really are.

A TMA Award-winning actress, Claire Price‘s credits for Sheffield Theatres include Don Carlos, Much Ado About Nothing, Mean Tears, Richard III and The Tempest. Her other stage work includes Little Platoons (Bush Theatre), The Power of Yes (National Theatre), Mary Stuart (Clwyd Theatr), Private Lives (Hampstead Theatre) and The White Devil (Menier Chocolate Factory).

Jay Simpson‘s theatre credits include Dealers Choice (Menier Chocolate Factory & Trafalgar Studios), Diamond Hard (Almeida Theatre), The Quaire Fellow (Oxford Stage Co/Tricycle) and Mother Molly’s Clap House and Battle Royal (both National Theatre). On television his credits include The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Hattie, Law & Order: UK, Ashes to Ashes, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Primeval and Rome.

Jamie Sives previously appeared in Edward II for Sheffield Theatres. His other credits include Hedda Gabler for the Almeida Theatre and television appearances in New Tricks, Game of Thrones, Outcasts, The Passion, Belle de Jour and Trial and Retribution.

The Pride is designed by James Cotterill, with lighting design by Johanna Town and music is by Olly Fox.


Finally, full casting for the world premiere of the Tricycle Theatre’s Tactical Questioning: Scenes from the Baha Mousa Inquiry edited by Richard Norton-Taylor which runs at the north London theatre from 6 June (previews from 2 June) to 2 July 2011.

Helmed by the Tricycle’s artistic director Nicolas Kent, the cast comprises Dean Ashton (Payne), Christopher Fox (Rodgers), Luke Harris (Cooper), David Michaels (Mercer), Alan Parnaby (Sir William Gage), Simon Rouse (Ingram), Mark Stobbart (Redfearn), Rick Warden (Major Peebles) and Thomas Wheatley (Elias).

Tactical Questioning brings together scenes from the testimony given to the Public Inquiry into the British Army’s shocking treatment of Iraqi detainees and the death of Baha Mousa in 2003.

On 14 September 2003, at the Haitham Hotel in Basra, Iraq, Baha Mousa and nine others were arrested by the British Army as suspected insurgents. Two days later Baha Mousa was dead. A post-mortem examination revealed that he had suffered from asphyxiation and had received at least 93 injuries to his body whilst in the Army’s custody. In 2008 the Secretary of State for Defence announced a public inquiry into Baha Mousa’s death and the treatment of those detained with him.

Tribunal play editor Richard Norton-Taylor joined the Guardian in 1975 as their Europe correspondent based in Brussels and since 1998 he has been security affairs editor. He wrote Half The Picture with John McGrath, scenes from the Scott Inquiry which was presented at the Tricycle, the Houses of Parliament and on BBC2, and won a Freedom of Information Campaign Award and Time Out Drama Award.

Since then he has edited most of the tribunal plays at the Tricycle including: Nuremberg, The Colour of Justice, Justifying War and Called To Account and winner of the 2006 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre Bloody Sunday. All of the productions were later broadcast by the BBC.

Director Nicolas Kent is assisted by Sophie Lifschutz. Tactical Questioning has design by Polly Sullivan, lighting by Charlie Hayday and sound and projections by Ed Borgnis.