Al Pacino Plays Peter Sellers in London???

Al Pacino is the latest name thrown into the pot as a possible Peter Sellers in a new West End play about the late comedian who found international fame as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films after early success on The Goon Show (See The Goss, 14 Jun 2007).

According to John Antrobus – who was a friend of Sellers’ and who has written the new piece, entitled It’s All in the Mind Folks – Pacino has been approached and is interested. But Pacino isn’t the first. Amongst the other actors previously mooted to headline the project have been Robert Downey Jnr, Robin Williams and Steve Coogan. According to Antrobus: “We have been looking at some top, top names. The play is about Peter’s last days. It is difficult to cast. We have been looking at some of the world’s greatest actors.”

Though best known for his many films, Pacino is an accomplished stage actor with two Tony Awards under his belt. He was last seen on the West End stage more than two decades ago in the 1984 production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo at the Duke of York’s. More recently, he’s been tipped to come to London in US transfers of the Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Wilde’s Salome (See The Goss, 31 Oct 2002). There was even talk of the Shakespeare fan tackling Richard III at the Globe.

Antrobus has tipped It’s All in the Mind Folks for a run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Could it figure as part of TRH’s next in-house season? The inaugural TRH season, under the direction of Jonathan Kent, continues until 1 November 2008 with Kent’s current revival of Edward Bond’s The Sea followed by Michel Legrand’s world premiere musical Marguerite (See News::E8821201715682}, 30 Jan 2008).