Alfie Back at Dukes & Oldham Grange

Following success at the Colton Octagon David Ricardo-Pearce and former Coronation Street star Vicky Binns have return to the North West in the tour of Bill Naughton’s Alfie.

Alfie
Elkins: the working class Don Juan of the East End – the man about town
with the world at his feet. And a new bird every Saturday night. It’s
the height of the Swinging Sixties, and no one is embracing the spirit
of free love more than Alfie.  But all good things must come to an end
and when his no-strings-attached life starts to come apart at the seams,
it’s time for him to wonder ‘what’s it all about’?

Despite starting life as a radio play, Alfie
was made world famous by Michael Caine in one of the most iconic films
of the 1960s. It received five Oscar nominations and was voted in Total
Film Magazine’s top 50 greatest British films of all time. Alfie was later remade with Jude Law as the eponymous anti-hero.

This
famous piece is the most celebrated work by Bill Naughton (1910-1992).
Naughton wrote the first ever play to be performed at the Octagon (Annie and Fanny) and his play Spring and Port Wine
(2008) is still the best-selling production in Octagon history. Bill
Naughton is a key figure in post-World War II English literary life.  A
popular writer, his work reflects significant changes in consciousness
and society in 1950s and 1960s Britain.

Artistic Director David
Thacker comments on his decision to bring this iconic piece of work
back to the stage: “Bringing Alfie to the stage in the Bill Naughton’s
home town is a real privilege for me as a Director, and also as a huge
admirer of Naughton’s work. As is often the case with great writing,
many of the issues that the play explores are still relevant today and I
really hope that many people who have enjoyed the film versions of
Alfie will come to see the play and experience something quite wonderful
in the intimate setting of the Octagon auditorium.”

The cast
includes Vicky Binns in the role of Annie, the naïve young girl who
falls for Alfie, despite his cooling affections for her. Unlike the
vulnerable character of Annie, Vicky is most well known for her role
playing the strong-willed Molly Dobbs in ITV’s Coronation Street.
Molly’s affair with married father Kevin Webster, and eventual death in
the dramatic tram crash episode in 2010, rocked the Street and ensured
her place in the cobbles’ history. Vicky last appeared at the Octagon
Theatre in the 24:7 Theatre Festival production Dave & Jeff Versus the Crazy Corpse Loving Consultant From Cardiothoracics in 2008.

Ricardo-Pearce appeared at the Octagon
earlier this year in the role of yet another famous leading lover when
he took on the role of Romeo in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. David also appeared in the Octagon production of Melvyn Bragg’s The Hired Man, which received the TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical by an ensemble cast in 2010.

Alfie is at the The Dukes from 3 -7 April and at the Grange (Oldham Coliseum’s temporary home) from 11 – 28 April.