King’s Shawshank Redeemed at Wyndham’s???

The stage adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption may be heading to the West End. The play, based on Stephen King’s 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption which also inspired the 1994 Hollywood film, premiered last month at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, where it concludes on 20 June and, according to the Daily Mail, negotiations are under way for a transfer to Wyndham’s Theatre in the autumn, following the conclusion of Jude Law’s Hamlet and the Donmar West End season.

American screen actors Kevin Anderson (Sleeping with the Enemy on film) and Reg E Cathey (TV’s The Wire) play Andy Dufresne and Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, two prison inmates who develop a life-long friendship after the former, a banker, is wrongly incarcerated for the murder of his wife.

The parts were played in the cult film version by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. The stage production is adapted by Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns, directed by Peter Sheridan and presented by Lane Productions, which has previously had success with I, Keano, Alone It Stands and Twelve Angry Men.