Theatre News

Plays cast: More Audience, Young Vic Feast & Allam in Tempest

4 December 2012

Further casting has been announced for next year’s world premiere of Peter Morgan’s The Audience, which, as previously announced, stars Oscar-winner Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II.

Stephen Daldry‘s production opens at the Gielgud Theatre on 5 March 2013 (previews from 15 February 2013) and is currently booking to 15 June 2013.

The play centres on the Queen’s weekly ‘audiences’ with her serving Prime Minister, and will feature Michael Elwyn as Anthony Eden, Nathaniel Parker as Gordon Brown and Rufus Wright as David Cameron, alongside the previously announced Haydn Gwynne as Margaret Thatcher, Robert Hardy as Winston Churchill and Paul Ritter as John Major.

The Audience is produced in the West End by Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions, Robert Fox and Andy Harries. Final casting will be announced soon.

Feast at the Young Vic will feature a cast comprising Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Naana Agyei-Ampadu, Daniel Cerqueira, Noma Dumezweni and Louis Mahoney, according to the Daily Mail.

Rufus Norris‘ “epic production”, which runs from from 25 January to 23 February 2013, celebrates Yoruba culture through story, live music and “dazzling choreography”. It’s written by five playwrights from across the world – Yunior García Aguilera, Rotimi Babatunde, Marcos Barbosa, Tanya Barfield and Gbolahan Obisesan.

Holdbrook-Smith has previously been seen in The Changeling and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Young Vic, while Dumezweni won an Olivier Award for A Raisin In The Sun at the venue in 2005.

Finally, the Daily Mail also reports that Roger Allam will return to the Globe next year to star as Prospero in The Tempest.

Allam, whose recent credits include Uncle Vanya (Chichester) and La Cage Aux Folles (West End), won an Olivier for playing Falstaff in Henry IV Parts I & II at the Globe in 2010.

As previously reported, The Tempest runs as part of the Globe’s ‘supernatural’ 2013 season, which also features A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth.