Riff Raff - casting announced
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
CASTING has been announced for actor Laurence Fishburne’s debut play Riff Raff, which opens at the Arcola Theatre on April 9, 2010 (previews from April 6).
Taking on the roles of Tony, Mike and Billy are Ariyon Bakare, Karl Collins and Eugene O’Hare.
Bakare’s theatre credits include The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Lyric Hammersmith) and Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and The Servant of Two Masters (Royal Shakespeare Company). On television, he has appeared in Spooks, Waking The Dead, A Touch of Frost and Doctors, for which he was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for Best Actor.
Collins’ theatre credits include Category B, Leave to Remain, Fabulation and Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Carpe Diem (Tricycle Theatre), and The 11th Capital (Royal Court Theatre). However, he is better known for his television appearances – in Dr Who, Silent Witness, A Thing Called Love and The Bill (as series regular D.C Danny Glaze).
O’Hare’s theatre credits include Victoria Wood’s Talent (Menier Chocolate Factory), Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (Hampstead Theatre), The Caretaker (The Citizen’s Theatre), Translations (National Theatre) and A Moon for the Misbegotten (Old Vic). On television, he has appeared in Waking the Dead, 10 Days of War and Sky 1’s Strike Back.
Previously Posted: Riff Raff, by award-winning actor Laurence Fishburne, receives its UK premiere at the Arcola Theatre, where it runs from Tuesday, April 6 to Saturday, April 24, 2010.
A powerful play about New York’s criminal underworld, Riff Raff is directed by Bill Buckhurst (The Vegemite Tales); designed by Simon Kenny; and presented by new theatre company, Alarum.
It’s Halloween, and half-brothers Mike “20-20” and Billy “Torch” are holed up in an abandoned crack den on the Lower East Side. They’ve got three kilos of smack, blood on their hands and New York’s biggest drug lord on their tail.
With nowhere to turn, Mike calls his old friend from Brooklyn to get them out of their mess. When the man arrives and night draws in, stories are swapped, loyalties are tested and the bleakness of their criminal lives threatens to envelop them forever.
Laurence Fishburne is an actor, playwright, screenwriter, director and producer. In 1992, he was awarded a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Theater World Award for his work on Broadway as Sterling Johnson in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running.
A year later, he won an Emmy for his performance in the premiere episode of Tribeca and was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of Ike Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It. His other screen credits include Event Horizon, The Matrix films (as Morpheus), Mission Impossible III and Bobby. He can currently be seen as Dr. Raymond Langston in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on Channel Five.
Riff Raff is Fishburne’s first play.
Tickets: £14, £10 concessions, Tuesdays ‘PAY WHAT YOU CAN’ (subject to availability) – available at the box office in person or on 020 7503 1646, or at www.arcolatheatre.com