Waiting for Godot to close as scheduled
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
AS PREVIOUSLY announced, the final performance of Sean Mathias’ sell-out production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot will take place on Sunday, April 4, 2010.
The production will then tour to Australia and New Zealand, with Ian McKellen (Estragon), Roger Rees (Vladimir) and Matthew Kelly (Pozzo) reprising their roles. However, Michael Burrell will replace Ronald Pickup as Lucky.
Previously Posted: Sean Mathias’ sell-out production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot will return to the Theatre Royal Haymarket for a strictly limited season – from January 27 (previews from January 21) to April 4, 2010.
Ian McKellen and Ronald Pickup, reprising their roles as Estragon and Lucky, will be joined by Roger Rees as Vladimir and Matthew Kelly as Pozzo.
Waiting for Godot follows two consecutive days in the lives of Vladimir and Estragon, who divert themselves by clowning around, joking and arguing, while waiting expectantly and unsuccessfully for the mysterious Godot.
Ian McKellen, who made his Beckett debut as Estragon, has previously collaborated with Sean Mathias who directed him in Uncle Vanya (title role), Dance of Death (as the Captain) and Aladdin (as Widow Twankey).
Since he started acting in 1961, McKellen has worked on both stage and screen. For the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Companies, he has produced and acted in plays old and new, most recently as King Lear on the RSC’s world tour. He also produced and wrote the screenplay for his Richard III and was Oscar-nominated twice – for his performance in Gods and Monsters and The Lord of the Rings.
He recently appeared as author Mel Hutchwright in Coronation Street and has completed ITV’s remake of the 1960s television series The Prisoner. And earlier this week, he won the Lebedev Special Award for his contribution to Theatre at the Evening Standard Awards.
Multi award-winning Roger Rees returns to London to play Vladimir. As well as extensive work for the Royal Shakespeare Company – Love’s Labour’s Lost, Cymbeline, Othello, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice and Three Sisters – his London theatre credits include Hapgood (Aldwych Theatre), The Real Thing (Strand Theatre) and the RSC’s Nicholas Nickleby (Aldwych Theatre, Old Vic and Broadway), for which he won both Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Actor.
In America, his theatre credits also include A Man of No Importance, Uncle Vanya, The Rehearsal, Indiscretions and Hapgood.
His screen credits include Almost Perfect, The Pink Panther, Frida, A Christmas Carol and Robin Hood Men in Tights (film); Cheers, Grey’s Anatomy, The West Wing, M.A.N.T.I.S and Law and Order (TV).
Ronald Pickup‘s more recent theatre credits include Look Back in Anger (Theatre Royal Bath); Proof (Donmar Warehouse); Amy’s View, Peer Gynt, Three Sisters, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Richard II and As You Like It (National Theatre); The Norman Conquests (Gielgud Theatre); Julius Caesar (Royal Court Theatre); Hobson’s Choice and Little Eyolf (Lyric Hammersmith); The Cherry Orchard (Aldwych Theatre); and Uncle Vanya (on tour and the Rose Theatre Kingston).
On screen, he has appeared in The Worst Week of My Life; Holby City, Sea of Souls, The Last Detective, Cambridge Spies, Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead, Dalziel and Pascoe, Ivanhoe, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, Silent Witness, The Rector’s Wife, Absolute Hell, Dr Jeykll and Mr Hyde, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chekhov in Yalta, The Fortunes of War and Pope John Paul II (TV); Tulse Luper Suitcase, The Secret Passage, Lolita, Danny the Champion of the World, The Fourth Protocol, The Mission, Camille, Never Say Never Again and The 39 Steps (film).
Matthew Kelly, who has previously played Vladimir in Waiting for Godot at the Oxford Playhouse, was most recently on stage at the Lyric Hammersmith in Sean Holmes production of Comedians. His other theatre credits include Of Mice and Men (as Lennie) for which he won the Best Actor Olivier Award, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Trafalgar Studios), Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare’s Globe), Amadeus (Wilton’s Music Hall), Forgotten Voices (Riverside Studios and Edinburgh Festival), Oh What A Lovely War and Samuel Beckett’s Endgame.
On television he has appeared in Cold Blood, Bleak House, Where The Heart Is and Marple.
Waiting for Godot was the first production in Sean Mathias’ season as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company. His production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Anna Friel and Joseph Cross will complete its run on January 9, 2010.
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