A year-long Kenneth Branagh Season at the Garrick Theatre
Season preview
KENNETH Branagh will direct and star in a year-long season of plays at the Garrick Theatre.
In total, there will be five plays – The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare; Terence Rattigan’s Harlequinade; an adaptation of Francis Veber’s classic French farce, The Painkiller; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; and The Entertainer by John Osborne.
Working in collaboration with artistic associates, director Rob Ashford and designer Christopher Oram, the acclaimed actor-director will present this exceptional series of five plays that bring together a remarkable group of actors, led by Rob Brydon, Judi Dench, Lily James and Richard Madden.
The season, entitled Plays at the Garrick, opens with The Winter’s Tale, which runs from November 7, 2015 (previews from October 17) to January 16, 2016. Branagh will play Leontes with Dench as Paulina.
The Winters Tale, Shakespeare’s timeless tragicomedy of obsession and redemption, is reimagined in a new production co-directed by Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh, following their triumphant staging of Macbeth in Manchester and Manhattan.
The Winter’s Tale will run in rep with a rare revival of Terence Rattigan’s Harlequinade (October 24, 2015 to January 13, 2016).
In this rarely seen comic gem, a classical theatre company attempts to produce The Winter’s Tale and Romeo and Juliet while the intrigues and dalliances of the company members are accidently revealed with increasingly chaotic and hysterical consequences.
Behind the scences world takes centre stage in Terence Rattigan’s affectionate celebration of the lunatic art of putting on a play.
Kenneth Branagh will perform and co-direct with Rob Ashford.
The third production, The Painkiller, runs from March 17 (previews from March 5) to April 30, 2016.
Sean Foley will direct his darkly hilarious adaptation of Francis Veber’s classic French farce, with Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon reprising the roles they played to great acclaim at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre in 2011.
Two men. Two lonely hotel rooms. An adjoining door. One of them is a killer (Branagh). One of them wants to die (Brydon). What could possibly go wrong?
The Painkiller is followed – from May 12 to August 13, 2016 – by Romeo and Juliet starring Richard Madden and Lily James, who Branagh recently directed on screen in Disney’s Cinderella, as the star-crossed lovers.
The season concludes with Rob Ashford’s production of The Entertainer. Starring Branagh as Archie Rice, it runs from August 20 to November 12, 2016.
Set against the backdrop of post-war Britain, John Osborne’s modern classic conjures the seedy glamour of the old music halls for an explosive examination of public masks and private moments.
The role of Archie Rice was originated by Laurence Olivier at the Royal Court, an actor with whom Branagh has often been compared.
The Beatles tribute show, Let It Be, is currently booking at the Garrick Theatre until September 27, 2015.