Sewell, Scott Thomas & Williams flip out over new Pinter revival?

A new production of Harold Pinter’s 1971 three-hander Old Times is being staged in the West End next year at the theatre recently named in the Nobel Prize-winning playwright’s honour.

According to the Daily Mail, the revival will be directed by Ian Rickson (Jerusalem) and feature a cast led by Rufus Sewell, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams.

But there’s a twist – Thomas and Williams will apparently alternate the roles of Kate and Anna nightly based on the “toss of a coin”.

In Pinter’s darkly erotic drama, Kate and her husband Deeley are visited in their converted farmhouse home by Kate’s old college
roommate Anna, sparking off a war in which memories – and
different versions of the past – are the weapons.

The alternating of roles echoes Danny Boyle‘s recent Olivier Award-winning production of Frankenstein at the National Theatre, when Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller swapped roles nightly.

But the idea of doing it based on a coin toss adds an element of unpredictability, so audiences won’t know who’s playing who until curtain up.

Scott Thomas and Rickson collaborated on a revival of Pinter’s Betrayal at the same venue (then called the Comedy Theatre) last year.

According to the Mail‘s Baz Bamigboye, Old Times, which is being produced by Sonia Friedman, will begin previews around 12 January 2013.