1st Night Photos: Fugard Train Enters Hampstead

Luminaries including Ian McKellen, Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn, Janet Suzman, Sylvester McCoy and Jim Broadbent turned out at the Hampstead Theatre last night (9 November 2010, previews from 4 November) for the European premiere of The Train Driver, which is written and directed by acclaimed South African playwright Athol Fugard.

Inspired by a traumatic true event, the play is set in the Eastern Cape of Fugard’s native South Africa, where a tormented train driver is compelled to visit a windswept cemetery to find the unmarked grave of the woman he unintentionally killed.

TO SCROLL THROUGH ALL OF THE THE TRAIN DRIVER’s 1st NIGHT PHOTOS,
JUST CLICK ON THE “NEXT >” LINKS BELOW THE FOLLOWING FRAME.
PHOTOS BY DAN WOOLLER FOR WHATSONSTAGE.COM.

Fugard, now 77, is best known from his anti-Apartheid plays of the 1970s and 80s including The Island, Sizwe Bansi is Dead (both developed with John Kani and Winston Ntshona) and Master Harold and the Boys. The Train Driver had its world premiere this past March at Cape Town’s Fugard Theatre, the venue newly established in honour of the playwright and his work.