Goold’s Six Characters Transfer to Gielgud, 15 Sep

Rupert Goold’s new version of Six Characters in Search of an Author will transfer to the West End following its summer season at Chichester Festival. It opens on 15 September 2008 (previews from 10 September) at the Gielgud Theatre, where it’s booking for a limited season to 8 November.

Goold and co-adapter Ben Power have updated the 1921 classic by Italian Luigi Pirandello for the “media-obsessed age” of the 21st century (See News, 29 Jan 2008). It opened on 8 July (previews from 28 June) at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre – where Goold’s award-laden Patrick Stewart-led Macbeth began last summer ahead of its transfer to the Gielgud and on to Broadway – and finishes there on 30 August.

In the exploration of reality and the blurred border between fiction and life, between the stage and the world outside, six characters arrive unannounced during the editing of a documentary film. Unfinished characters desperately in search of an author, the documentary producer agrees to let them film their story.

Former Almeida joint artistic director Ian McDiarmid (pictured), whose previous Pirandello credits include Henry IV at the Donmar Warehouse, plays Father in a cast that also features Jamie Bower, Eleanor David, Noma Dumezweni, Dyfan Dwyfor, Christine Entwisle, Denise Gough, Jake Harders, Jeremy Joyce, John Mackay and Robin Pearce.

Six Characters in Search of an Author is a co-production between Chichester Festival and Headlong Theatre, of which Goold is artistic director. It’s presented in the West End by Carole Winter and Michael Edwards.

It will be Goold’s second play in the West End this autumn. His revival of Harold Pinter’s 1975 play No Man’s Land, starring Michael Gambon and Little Britain’s David Walliams opens on 7 October (previews from 27 September) at the Duke of York’s, following its initial dates in Dublin (See News, 2 Jul 2008). Further ahead, in December, he helms Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

– by Terri Paddock