Theatre News

Plays Cast: Hampstead Tiger, Penelope & Twelfth

Full casting has been announced for Tiger Country, written and directed by Nina Raine, which premieres at Hampstead Theatre next month (19 January to 5 February 2011, previews from 13 January), continuing Edward Hall‘s inaugural season as artistic director.

The play, Raine’s third after her award-winning Rabbit and Tribes, presents a “funny and vivid exploration of life in a highly pressured London hospital”, seen through the lens of the frenetic medical and surgical wards.

What ethical decisions are made in our NHS hospitals everyday? Who makes them – and what external issues influence them? Enter the corridors of a busy London hospital, a workplace full of professionals under the most extreme pressure, where an unintentional slip can have disastrous consequences.

The cast comprises: David Cann, Pip Carter (White Guard, Never So Good NT), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Tricycle’s Not Black and White season), Ruth Everett, Adam James (Blood and Gifts, NT), Thusitha Jayasundera, Joan Kempson, Henry Lloyd-Hughes (BBC’s The Inbetweeners), Maggie McCarthy, Nicolas Tennant (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, CFT) and Harvey Virdi.

Design is by Lizzie Clachan, with lighting by Rick Fisher and sound by Fergus O’Hare.


Also at the Hampstead, casting has been confirmed for the London premiere of Enda Walsh’s Penelope, which runs from 19 January to 5 February 2011. There is one change from the company that toured the play earlier this year (including a run at the Traverse during the Edinburgh Fringe) – Aaron Monaghan is replacing Tadhg Murphy as Burns. The full cast is Niall Buggy (Fitz), Denis Conway (Dunne), Aaron Monaghan (Burns), Karl Shiels (Quinn) and Olga Wehrly.

The play, which marks the start of a new partnership between the Hampstead and renowned Galway-based
theatre company Druid, is a new interpretation of the story of Penelope and her suitors from Homer’s Odyssey. Walsh’s dark comedy centres on four ridiculous men vying for an unwinnable love as they face their inevitable deaths.


In other play casting news:

  • The New End Theatre’s staging of Kate Glover’s Judenfrei will star Noa Bodner, Victoria Corlass, Kate Glover, Tim Thomas and Anthony Wolfe. Running from 3 to 30 January 2011, the play centres on the lives of two promising young Jewish lawyers in 1930s Berlin who became victims of Hitler’s 1933 act barring Jews from practicing law. Tom Scott directs.
  • Another Way Theatre’s music hall-inspired production of Twelfth Night at east London venue The Space runs from 21 December 2010 to 8 January 2011. Directed by Chris Chambers, the cast will feature Helen Brushett, Carl Chambers, Andrew Goddard, Michael Good, Michael Hall, Billie Higson, Christopher Mark, Trevor Murphy, Steven Rostance, Kristal Sisodia, Rebecca Tanwen, Andrew Venning and Taniel Yusef.