“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darknesss… It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair – we had everything before us! We had nothing before us!”
The Touring Consortium Theatre Company and Royal & Derngate Northampton are pleased to announce full casting for Charles Dickens’ literary masterpiece A TALE OF TWO CITIES, opening at Royal & Derngate on Saturday 10 September 2016, with a national press night on Wednesday 14 September, and touring the UK until November.
Jacob Ifan will be making his professional theatre debut as ‘Charles Darnay’. Jacob is best known for playing the lead role of PC Jake Vickers on the BBC’s recent TV series Cuffs. Joseph Timms, whose credits include Twelfth Night and Richard III (Donmar on Broadway), Privates on Parade (Noel Coward Theatre) and The Hudsucker Proxy (Nuffield/Liverpool Everyman), will play ‘Sydney Carton’.
Shanaya Rafaat who has appeared in Great Expectations (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Around the World in 80 Days (St James Theatre) and King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe), will play ‘Lucie Manette’ and Sue Wallace, whose National Theatre credits include Husbands and Sons, Emil and the Detectives and Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories, takes the role of ‘Miss Pross’. Patrick Romer, who has numerous RSC credits to his name, plays ‘Dr Manette’.
Harry Attwell, whose credits include The Skriker (Royal Exchange Theatre), The Crucible (Old Vic) and Henry V (Michael Grandage Company) will play ‘Defarge’ and Noa Bodner, whose credits include Testing the Echo/Moving Stories (National Theatre) and Playing for Time (Sheffield Crucible), will play ‘Madame Defarge’. Michael Garner, fresh from Nell Gwynn in the West End, appears as ‘Lorry’.
Sean Murray (The Hook and Cat on at Hot Tin Roof, Royal & Derngate) plays ‘Barsad’ and Christopher Hunter (The Surprise of Love and Iphigenia, Theatre Royal Bath; Romeo and Juliet, RSC) will be the ‘Marquis’. The cast is completed by Rebecca Birch, Jonathan Dryden Taylor and Jon Tarcy.
Dickens considered his novel, A Tale Of Two Cities the best story he had ever written. Interweaving one family’s intensely personal drama with the terror and chaos of the French Revolution, it is an epic story of love, sacrifice and redemption amidst horrific violence and world changing events.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES was first produced in Northampton in 2014, to great critical and public acclaim, and was director James Dacre’s inaugural production at the theatre. Adapted by Mike Poulton (Fortune’s Fool, Old Vic and Broadway, Wolf Hall RSC, West End & Broadway), and with an original score by Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman (The Cider House Rules, Beloved), and UK Theatre Award nominated design by Mike Britton, with lighting design by Paul Keogan, sound design by Adrienne Quartly, movement direction by Struan Leslie, and fight direction by Terry King.
UK tour dates 2016
Tuesday 13th – Saturday 17th September ROYAL & DERNGATE NORTHAMPTON
Tuesday 20th – Saturday 24th September OXFORD PLAYHOUSE
Tuesday 27th – Saturday 1st October RICHMOND THEATRE
Tuesday 4th – Saturday 8th October ALHAMBRA THEATRE BRADFORD
Tuesday 11th – Saturday 15th October BLACKPOOL GRAND
Wednesday 19th – Saturday 22nd October WOLVERHAMPTON GRAND
Tuesday 1st – Saturday 5th November THEATRE ROYAL BRIGHTON
Tuesday 8th – Saturday 12th November KINGS THEATRE EDINBURGH
Tuesday 15th – Saturday 19th November CHELTENHAM EVERYMAN
Tuesday 22nd – Saturday 26th November THEATRE ROYAL NOTTINGHAM
