Double Dose of Shakespeare for West End

The current Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of Richard III, starring Robert Lindsay in the title role, is headed for London’s West End in January. Also, a new commercial production of Macbeth, starring Rufus Sewell in the title role, will open in the West End in March.

The production of Richard III, directed by Elijah Moshinsky, opened at the RSC’s Stratford-upon-Upon main stage Royal Shakespeare Theatre in October, and is currently on a British regional tour. (Current dates include: Woking’s New Victoria Theatre, November 17-21; Cardiff’s New Theatre, November 24-28; Bradford’s Alhambra Theatre, December 1-5; and Bath’s Theatre Royal, December 8-12). It will play at the Savoy Theatre from January 18, 1999. Robert Lindsay, the Tony award winning star of the British musical Me and My Girl that played at the Marquis Theatre in the mid-eighties (and prior to that was originally seen at London’s Adelph Theatre, where Lindsay also collected an Olivier Award), is making his RSC debut in the role. He has previously worked with director Moshinsky on West End productions of Beckett and Cyrano de Bergerac, as well as television’s Genghis Cohn. The actor was also highly acclaimed for his television role in Alan Bleasdale’s GBH. The cast also includes Anna Carteret as Margaret, Dilys Hamlett as the Duchess of York, Sian Thomas as Elizabeth and David Yelland as Buckingham.

Macbeth, which producer Thelma Holt is bringing to the Queen’s Theatre for an opening on March 3, will play a limited fourteen-week season there, ending on June 5. Rufus Sewell, the dynamic young actor last seen in the West End in the Royal Court’s production of Ron Hutchinson’s Rat in the Skull, will star opposite Sally Dexter, recently seen in the original National Theatre production of Patrick Marber’s Closer, and also as Nancy in the revival of Oliver! at the London Palladium.

Mark Shenton