Alex - Leicester Square Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FOLLOWING last year’s success at the Arts Theatre, Robert Bathurst returns to the West End – to the newly refurbished Leicester Square Theatre – with the one-man comedy Alex, which runs from November 27 (previews from November 25) to December 20, 2008.
With the economy in freefall and the credit crunch biting down hard on financial dinosaurs like Alex, is it time to get out of the square mile? And if so how on earth will Alex cope outside his natural habitat?
The comedy, based on the Daily Telegraph‘s cartoon investment banker, features all the cartoon strip’s regular characters – Alex’ timid and inept sidekick Clive, long-suffering wife Penny, abrasive boss Rupert, stroppy client Mr Hardcastle, as well as graduate trainees, lap dancers, bibulous journalists, freeloading industrialists and all the other fringe characters of City life.
In the 75-minute show, Bathurst interacts with these animated characters from Alex’ two-dimensional world; characters created in 1987 by cartoonists Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor. The production is directed by Phelim McDermott.
Although Bathurst is probably best known as Cold Feet‘s David Marsden, he has appeared on stage in Three Sisters (opposite Kristin Scott Thomas), Hedda Gabler (alongside Francesca Annis) and the Olivier nominated Whipping It Up.
Alex has toured in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.