Not many dynamic screen actors are equally electrifying on stage but David Tennant is one of them.
As well as becoming a household name as the tenth Doctor in the BBC's DOCTOR WHO, he's also triumphed as the lead in a number of other TV hits including BROADCHURCH and JESSICA JONES.
However far from resting on his laurels Tennant makes regular returns to the stage including giving three highly acclaimed Shakespearean performances in recent years one of which was as Benedict in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, playing opposite Catherine Tate, at the Wyndham's Theatre where he's returning next year to play legendary ladies man, Don Juan.
His other theatre credits include Richard II - for which he won the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Play - and Hamlet for the RSC so this modern rethinking of the Don Juan legend (by Patrick Marber based on the 17th Century play by Moliere) will be a chance for theatregoers to see him working with contemporary language.
Don Juan is a prodigious and irresponsible seducer of women. Aided by his servant he tricks and persuades his way into the beds of some very powerful people until he's confronted by a vengeful figure from his past. I can just imagine Tennant with his lanky good looks and that permanent twinkle in his eyes being great in the role.
The Don Juan figure has been central to a number of other stage adaptations most notably of course Mozart’s masterpiece, the opera DON GIOVANNI. If you get a chance do go and see the splendid production of AMADEUS at the National Theatre and you’ll enjoy Peter Shaffer’s very persuasive theory about who both Mozart and the mythical lover were haunted by in their final hours.
Patrick Marber’s version, which is set in contemporary Soho, London’s occasionally racy centre of media companies and prostitution, originally premiered at the Donmar Warehouse and apparently is hilarious. I'm quite sure Tennant’s sublime comic timing will ensure it is.
This revival will be directed by Marber himself following a busy period of successes at the National Theatre. It’s designed by Anne Fleischle. Anything with David Tennant tends to sell out very quickly so don’t delay booking your tickets for the chance to be seduced.
The sauciness begins at the Wyndham's Theatre in March 2017 where it runs from 28 March to 10 June 2017 with previews from 17th.
I really enjoyed the current revival of THE DRESSER last night, Ronald Harwood’s melancholy comic tragedy about a back stage wardrobe assistant coaxing and bullying an ageing actor through a production of King Lear during a WW2 bombing raid. Through this situation Harwood explores the futility we all feel from time to time using theatre life as a metaphor for existence.