Photos

1st Night Photos: Pinter’s Pride at All-star Betrayal

Editorial Staff
London's West End

Betrayal director Roger Michell had plenty to celebrate last night (5 June, previews from 31 May 2007) at the Donmar Warehouse: a successful – and hugely starry – opening, the attendance of the play’s Nobel Prize-winning author Harold Pinter, and several birthdays (his own 51st included) to boot (See Today’s Review Round-up).

Michell directed Pinter’s Old Times at the Donmar three years ago. For this new production, he’s assembled a top-notch cast led by Toby Stephens, Dervla Kirwan and, in his first stage appearance since stepping down as Sheffield Theatres artistic director, Samuel West. Played backwards in time, Betrayal traces a seven-year affair – between art gallery owner Emma (Kirwan) and literary agent Jerry (Stephens), the best friend of her publisher husband Robert (West) – from its poignant end to its first illicit kiss.

The drama was last seen in the West End in a 2003 production directed by Peter Hall, who also helmed the 1978 premiere at the National, where Penelope Wilton, Michael Gambon and Daniel Massey starred. The Donmar revival is designed by William Dudley with lighting by Rick Fisher, sound by John Owens and music by Alec Dankworth.


TO SCROLL THROUGH ALL OF THE BETRAYAL 1st NIGHT PHOTOS,
JUST CLICK ON THE “NEXT >” LINKS BELOW THE FOLLOWING FRAME.

For 1st Night Photos, our Whatsonstage.com photographer Dan Wooller was on hand for the post-show party at the Donmar Warehouse along with the cast, creative team and author and other first night guests including Joanne David, Guy Henry, Anna Maxwell Martin, Thea Sharrock, Douglas Hodge, Tessa Peake-Jones, Jason Robert Brown, Nicholas Le Prevost, Christopher Oram, Janet McTeer, Rob Ashford, Josie Rourke, Rupert Penry-Jones and Donmar artistic director Michael Grandage.

Betrayal continues until 21 July 2007 and is followed in the Donmar season by Absurdia (26 July to 8 September), a collection of three absurdist plays directed by Douglas Hodge; the UK premiere of Jason Robert Brown’s Tony Award-winning 1998 musical Parade (14 September to 24 November), directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford; and, sure to be one of the hottest tickets of the year, Michael Grandage’s production of Othello (29 November to 23 February) starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ewan McGregor and Kelly Reilly
(See News, 11 May 2007).

– by Terri Paddock