Goold’s ENRON Transfers to Noel Coward, 16 Jan

Ahead of its opening tomorrow (22 September 2009, previews from 17 September), Rupert Goold’s Headlong production of Lucy Prebble’s corporate fraud drama ENRON has announced its previously tipped West End transfer for the new year (See The Goss, 7 Sep 2009).

It will open on 16 January 2010 at the Noel Coward Theatre, where it’s initially booking until 8 May 2010. ENRON premiered to critical acclaim at Chichester Festival in July (See Review Round-up, 23 Jul 2009), and has already sold out of its Royal Court season to 7 November 2009.

It’s the third big hit for Goold that originated at Chichester prior to the West End, following his multi award-winning Patrick Stewart-led Macbeth in 2007, which also transferred to Broadway, and his reworking of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author last year.

It also marks the second successive Royal Court Downstairs production to secure a transfer; on Friday, it was announced that Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, which immediately preceded ENRON at Sloane Square, will reopen at the West End’s Apollo Theatre in February (See News, 18 Sep 2009).

Described as an “epic tragedy”, ENRON is inspired by the real events surrounding the Texas-headquartered energy company that filed for bankruptcy in 2001. The cast is led by Samuel West as the corporation’s president Jeffrey Skilling, alongside Tim Pigott-Smith as chairman Ken Lay, Amanda Drew as a fictional executive and Tom Goodman-Hill as Fastow, a financial whizz-kid.

Currently at the Noel Coward, another play that began life at Chichester, Tim Firth’s stage adaptation of his 2003 film Calendar Girls, has posted closing notices for 9 January (See Today’s Other News).