Theatre News

Keen & Hille Star in Cheek Macbeth at Barbican

Cheek by Jowl’s annual offering at the Barbican Centre in 2010 will be a new English-language production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, starring Will Keen in the title role and Anastasia Hille as Lady Macbeth.

Directed by Declan Donnellan and designed by Nick Ormerod – the company’s co-founders who are currently working on their first feature film, Bel Ami, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Uma Thurman and Twilight’s Robert Pattinson – Macbeth runs at the Barbican’s recently opened 400-seat Silk Street Theatre from 24 March to 10 April 2010 (previews from 18 March) as part of an international tour.

Both Keen and Hille are Cheek by Jowl alumni; Keen appeared in the 2006 production of The Changeling and Hille starred in The Duchess of Malfi for the company in 1995. Keen’s many other stage credits include Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Arsonists, Tom and Viv, Five Gold Rings, Pericles and The Coast of Utopia, while Hille’s include Women of Troy, Waves, Dream Play, Forty Winks, The Dark, Ashes to Ashes/Mountain Language and The Maids.

The rest of the Macbeth company, a mix of long-standing ensemble members and newcomers, comprises: David Caves, David Collings, Vincent Enterby, Jake Fairbrother, Nicholas Goode, Kelly Hotten, Orlando James, Ryan Kiggell, Greg Kolpakchi and Edmund Wiseman.

Macbeth is a co-production with barbicanbite10, Les Gemeaus/Sceaux/SceneNationale, Koninklijke Schouwburg, Grand Theatre de Luxembourg, Theatre du Nord, Lille and Theatre de Namur/Centre Dramatique. It had initial dates this past September and October in Belgium and Spain and resumes its international tour from Paris in February, continuing through May. Its other UK dates are at the Brighton Festival from 11 to 15 May 2010.

Founded in 1981, Cheek by Jowl have established an international reputation for bringing fresh life to classics, working in French and Russian as well as English. They have toured to over 300 cities in 40 countries. In 1998, Donnellan and Ormerod disbanded the company in favour of freelance projects but reformed in 2004 and, since launching annual London residencies at the venue in 2006, have been an associate company at the Barbican (See News, 13 Jul 2005).