Actor / Director Kenneth Branagh’s PLAYS AT THE GARRICK season has really revitalised serious play going in the West End with a series of star led productions at the Garrick Theatre.
Audiences have already enjoyed Zoe Wanamaker, Judy Dench and Adrian Lester playing lead roles in great plays and it has now been announced that TV, Theatre and movie star John Hurt will join Kenneth Branagh as the father and son at the heart of John Osborne’s vintage eulogy for the death of Music Hall, THE ENTERTAINER.
The Branagh role of Archie Rice has always attracted top notch actors since Lawrence Olivier first played it to enormous acclaim. In the 1950’s Rice is a decrepit figure trying to eke a living as a comedian in a very British form of variety theatre that was going out of fashion. It’s a long, wordy play that I've never particularly enjoyed, which deals with themes and attitudes to life that are now obsolete but perhaps this stellar pairing can bring it to fresh life.
Hurt, now in his 70s, hasn’t been on stage in London for ten years, concentrating on movies like the HARRY POTTER franchise and some great TV so it’ll be a treat to have him back especially since he has won his well publicised battle with cancer.
He first came to prominence in the 1970s with extraordinary performances as the flamboyant, cross dresser Quentin Crisp in the biographical TV play THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT and as a another real life figure, the hideously deformed “Elephant Man” in the film of the same title.
Hurt and Branagh will be joined in THE ENTERTAINER by Greta Scacchi (Brideshead Revisited, War and Peace) as Phoebe, Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey) as Jean and Jonah Hauer-King (Punk Rock) as Frank.
Hurt has said: "I am thrilled to be invited to play Billy Rice in this production of what I believe to be one of the great plays of the twentieth century. This has been a wonderfully successful season for Ken Branagh and his company, and I feel proud and privileged to be joining them."
It sounds like this’ll be another sell out so luckily, if you’re unable to get a ticket, you can see the production in the cinema. But book now. You’ll want to see this cast live and in the flesh
Dancer, Choreographer and Director Adam Haigh admires two plays about entertainers who faced racism with courage.