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Everyman - National Theatre (Olivier)

Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle

DIRECTED by Rufus Norris and with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role, Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of Everyman opens in the Olivier Theatre on April 29, 2015 (previews from April 22) as part of the Travelex £15 Tickets season.

Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. He is forced to abandon the life he has built and embark on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.

One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, this new production has words by Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, and movement by Javier De Frutos.

Carol Ann Duffy is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009. Her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children’s Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. In 2011, The Bees won the Costa Poetry Award and in 2012, she won the PEN Pinter Prize.

Chiwetel Ejiofor returns to the National, where he last appeared in 2000 as Romeo, Peer Gynt, and in Blue/Orange, receiving the Evening Standard Best Newcomer Award. His many film and TV performances since then include 12 Years A Slave, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Leading Actor and received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations; A Season in the Congo, Half of a Yellow Sun, 2012, The Shadow Line, Dancing on the Edge, Tsunami: the Aftermath, Kinky Boots and Dirty Pretty Things (Independent Film Award for Best Actor).

Ejiofor’s theatre credits include The Seagull (Royal Court) and the title role in Othello (Donmar Warehouse), for which he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.

Rufus Norris’ productions for the National include Behind the Beautiful Forevers, The Amen Corner, Table, London Road, Death and the King’s Horseman and Market Boy. His other work includes Feast, Vernon God Little and Tintin (Young Vic); the Olivier Award-winning Cabaret (West End and on tour); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Broadway); and Festen (Almeida, West End and New York).

Norris’ screen work includes Broken, which won the British Independent Film Award for Best Film, and the film of London Road which will be released later this year.

Everyman will have set designs by Ian MacNeil, costumes by Nicky Gillibrand, lighting by Paul Anderson, choreography by Javier De Frutos, music by William Lyons and sound by Paul Arditti. It will be broadcast to cinemas by NT Live on July 16.