Ken Stott Stars in Arthur Miller’s View from the Bridge

Ken Stott (pictured) will star in a major new revival of Arthur Miller’s 20th-century classic A View from the Bridge, which will open at the West End’s Duke of York’s theatre on 5 February 2009 (previews from 24 January).

In Miller’s 1955 play, which hasn’t been seen in the West End since 1995, Stott plays Eddie Carbone, a head-strong longshoreman raising his wife’s orphaned niece, Catherine. When Eddie’s feelings for Catherine develop from paternal protectiveness to sexual desire, his struggle to contain his emotions leads him on a path of self destruction transforming him from a respected, honourable man to a virtual stranger shamed and broken by his own actions.

Ken Stott was seen in the West End earlier this year, starring with Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer and Tamsin Greig in the UK premiere of Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage. He was also in the original West End cast of Reza’s Art, along with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, while his other stage credits include Heroes, Faith Healer, The Misanthrope, The Rose Tattoo and Miller’s Death of a Salesman. On screen, he’s been seen in the likes of Hancock and Joan, Rebus, Messiah, Girl in a Café and Charlie Wilson’s War.

Voted the world’s greatest living playwright prior to his death in 2005 (See News, 11 Feb 2005), American dramatist Arthur Miller’s other plays included Death of a Salesman (which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama), The Crucible, All My Sons, After the Fall, The Price and The Man Who Had All the Luck, which was revived earlier this year at the Donmar Warehouse.

A View from the Bridge is directed by Lindsay Posner, whose revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel starring Lesley Garrett transfers to the West End’s Savoy Theatre this December. Posner’s other West End credits include Fiddler on the Roof, A Life in the Theatre, Oleanna, Fool for Love and The Birthday Party.

The new production is designed by Christopher Oram, lit by Peter Mumford and produced by Kim Poster for Stanhope Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions.
Currently at the Duke of York’s, Rupert Goold’s production of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land – starring Michael Gambon, David Bradley, Nick Dunning and, making his stage acting debut, Little Britain’s David Walliams – continues its limited season until 3 January (See Review Round-up, 8 Oct 2008).

– by Terri Paddock