Cloud Nine - casting announced
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
THE CAST of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine which opens at the Almeida Theatre on October 31, 2007 (previews from October 25), includes James Fleet as Clive/Cathy.
Joining him are Mark Letheren (Joshua/Gerry), Tobias Menzies (Harry Bagley/Martin), Bo Poraj (Betty/Edward), Joanna Scanlan (Maud/Victoria), Sophie Stanton (Ellen/Mrs Saunders/Lin) and Nicola Walker (Edward/Betty).
Fleet’s theatre credits include Habeas Corpus (Theatre Royal Bath), Mary Stuart (Donmar Warehouse), Three Sisters (Playhouse Theatre), Art (Wyndhams’ Theatre) and The Taming of the Shrew, Volpone, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Peter Pan (RSC). He is currently playing MEP Philip Wardrobe in Richard Bean’s political farce In The Club at Hampstead Theatre.
His screen credits include The Vicar of Dibley (as Hugo), Midsomer Murders, Sea of Souls, Monarch of the Glen and Brotherly Love (TV); and A Cock and Bull Story, The Phantom of the Opera, Charlotte Gray, Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings and a Funeral (film).
Letheren’s credits include Find the Lady, The Secret Rapture, Been So Long, Ghost Sonata, Hard Shoulder and Beautiful Thing (theatre); Wire in the Blood, Waking the Dead, Judge John Deed, Silent Witness and Pie in the Sky (TV); and Wilde, Restoration and SW9 (film).
Menzies’ credits include The Cherry Orchard, The History Boys, Hamlet, Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance, Three Sisters, Platonov and The Way of the World (theatre); Persuasion, Rome, A Very Social Secretary, Foyle’s War and Longitude (TV); and Atonement, Casino Royale, Pierrepoint and Finding Neverland (film).
Poraj’s credits include Hilda, Easter, Americans, Three Sisters, Dr Faustus, The Tempest and, for the National, Remembrance of Things Past, Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards and Mother Courage (theatre); The Golden Hour, D Day, Underworld and Ny-Lon (TV); and Stormbreaker and Enigma (film).
Scanlan’s credits include Vernon God Little, Madam Bovary, After the Dance, Top Girls and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (theatre); The Thick of It, Little Britain, Doc Martin, My Family, Vanity Fair, One Foot in the Grave and Jayne Eyre (TV); and The Other Boleyn Girl, Notes on a Scandal, Kinky Boots and Girl with a Pearl Earing (film).
Stanton’s credits include Dying for It, Market Boy, Top Girls, Beautiful Thing, Sleeping Around and Bright (theatre); Fingersmith, Coupling, Hidden City, EastEnders, Tough Love and Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (TV); and Grow Your Own, Closer, Shadowlands and Beautiful Thing (film).
Walker’s credits include Fresh Kills, The Libertine/Man of Mode, Hated Nightfall, Tales from Vienna Woods, Edmond, Free, The Dead Eye Boy, A Lie in the Mind and Passion Play (theatre); Oliver Twist, Spooks, Red Cap, Moll Flanders and Milner (TV); and Shoot Dogs, Shiner and Four Weddings and a Funeral (film).
Previously Posted: Thea Sharrock will direct Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, which runs from October 31 (previews from October 25) to December 8, 2007, at Islington’s Almeida Theatre.
Set in colonial Africa and modern-day Britain, Churchill’s landmark play is about relationships – between women and men, men and men, women and women. It’s also about sex, work, mothers, Africa, power, children, grandmothers, politics, money, Queen Victoria and sex.
Multi award-winning Churchill wrote her first stage play, Owners in 1972. Her many plays for the Royal Court Theatre where she was resident dramatist, include Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, A Number, Far Away, Serious Money, Blue Heart, This is a Chair and Top Girls.
Her other plays include Fen, A Mouthful of Birds, A Dream Play and The Skriker; as well as After Dinner Joke, Turkish Delight and The Judge’s Wife (TV); and Perfect Happiness, Henry’s Past, Abortive and Identical Twins (radio).
Cloud Nine was first staged by Joint Stock and premiered in London at the Royal Court in 1979. In 1981, it opened in New York where it played for two years off-Broadway. It has since been staged world-wide.
Sharrock’s theatre credits include A Voyage Round My Father (Donmar Warehouse and Wyndham’s Theatre); Heroes (Wyndham’s Theatre); Private Lives, Don Juan and Blithe Spirit (Bath Theatre Royal); Tejas Verdes (The Gate where she was Artistic Director); Free (National Theatre’s Loft Season); A Doll’s House, Mongoose, Trip’s Cinch and The Sleeper Den (Southwark Playhouse where she was also Artistic Director); and most recently, Peter Shaffer’s Equus (Gielgud Theatre). Her Gate Theatre production of Emperor Jones opens at the National Theatre in August.
Sharrock previously directed Churchill’s Top Girls at Battersea Arts Centre as the recipient of the James Menzies-Kitchin Memorial Trust’s Young Director of the Year Award 2000. Later her production toured the UK before a run at the Aldwych Theatre in 2002.
Designs for Cloud Nine are by Peter McKintosh with lighting by Peter Mumford and sound by Gregory Clarke. Casting will be announced shortly.
Opera 2007 is currently playing at the Almeida.
Read more