Catherine Tate Injury Forces Blue Sky Cancellation

The first preview last night (15 July 2008) of Under the Blue Sky was cancelled after star Catherine Tate sustained an ankle injury during yesterday’s final dress rehearsal. In a statement, producers said that, following X-rays, they “had every confidence” that Tate would return today and preview performances would commence this evening, ahead of the scheduled press night next Friday, 25 July 2008.

In David Eldridge’s darkly comic play, first seen at the Royal Court in 2000, Tate is one of a group of teachers who get together for a long evening of drinking tequila and revealing secrets. Love in its varying degrees – from fondness and affection through to the headier extremes of a drunken romp – is truthfully depicted.

Best known for her self-penned BBC TV comedy sketch series The Catherine Tate Show, Tate was last seen in the West End in 2005, appearing with David Schwimmer in Neil LaBute’s Some Girls at the Gielgud. Her other stage acting credits include A Servant to Two Masters, The Way of the World and The Exonerated, while on screen she’s also been seen in Bleak House, Starter for Ten, Scenes of Sexual Nature, Wild West, Men Behaving Badly and has just recently finished a series of Doctor Who, starring as Donna Noble, sidekick to David Tennant’s Doctor, a part she first played in a Christmas 2006 special.

Tate is joined in the Under the Blue Sky cast by Francesca Annis, Chris O’Dowd, Lisa Dillon, Nigel Lindsay and Dominic Rowan. This West End premiere production is directed by Anna Mackmin, who directed Orlando Bloom in his stage debut, David Storey’s In Celebration, at the Duke of York’s last summer. It’s designed by Lez Brotherston, with lighting by Mark Henderson and sound by Paul Arditti, and presented by Sonia Friedman Productions Ltd.

Author David Eldridge’s other plays include Market Boy, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness, M.A.D., Serving It Up, Summer Begins, A Week with Tony, the multi award-winning stage adaptation of Festen, and new versions of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck and John Gabriel Borkman.

– by Terri Paddock

** DON’T MISS our Whatsonstage.com Outing to UNDER THE BLUE SKY on 21 August 2008 – including a FREE programme & EXCLUSIVE post-show Q&A with author, director & members of the cast! – click here to book now! **