James Corden Returns to Stage as Hytner Servant

James Corden will return to the stage – and more specifically, the National Theatre, and even more specifically the NT Lyttelton – for the first time since Alan Bennett’s The History Boys shot him to fame, after premiering there in May 2004.

Corden has been lured back to star in Carlo Goldoni’s 18th-century farce A Servant to Two Masters, in a new version by Richard Bean, directed by NT artistic director Nicholas Hytner, who also directed Corden in The History Boys. Though exact dates have not yet been confirmed, the new production is slated for May 2011.

Corden will play the idle Venetian scrounger Truffaldino, who suddenly finds himself with two new serving jobs on the same day. However, his efforts to keep the two masters apart results in much deception, disguise and unrequited love.

Having originated the role of Timms in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, which he performed at the National Theatre, on a world tour, on Broadway and in the film version, Corden went on to become a household name as co-writer and star of TV’s Gavin and Stacey. His other screen credits include Horne and Corden, Fat Friends, Teachers, Cruise of the Gods, Doctor Who and this summer’s James Corden’s World Cup Live on television, as well as films such as How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Telstar, Lesbian Vampire Killers and Mike Leigh’s All of Nothing.

For two years, he also found time to co-host our very own Whatsonstage.com Awards with Sheridan Smith, famously sharing an on-stage snog with Daniel Radlcliffe in the 2008 ceremony.