Some of the country’s most exciting young stars – Jessica Barden, Kate O’Flynn, Hayley Squires, Luke Thallon and Russell Tovey have joined the highly-anticipated Harold Pinter season Pinter at the Pinter, together with the legendary Sir Antony Sher and Penelope Wilton.
This will be first time Barden (The End of the F**king World), O’Flynn (The Glass Menagerie), Squires (I, Daniel Blake), Thallon (Albion) and Tovey (Angels in America) have performed Pinter’s work, thus introducing his plays to a whole new generation.
Russell Tovey said: “Pinter’s work brings danger and wit and sexiness and magic and coolness to the Theatre and this season will bring all of that and more, like a seriously high-end boxset binge.”
Sir Antony Sher, who is also making his Pinter debut, said: “This is a very special project for me – I’ve always longed to be in a Pinter play, and now at last I’ve got my chance. And what a play this is! ONE FOR THE ROAD shows Pinter at the height of his powers, I believe. He’s taking on a truly difficult subject, torture, yet writing with such wit, danger and lightness of touch, it’s breathtaking.”
Sher and Kate O’Flynn, who impressed audiences and critics alike in Anatomy of a Suicide at the Royal Court, join the previously-announced Paapa Essiedu and Maggie Steed in the explosive first evening of the season, the must-see One for the Road / The New World Order / Mountain Language / Ashes to Ashes, directed by Jamie Lloyd and Lia Williams. BAFTA nominee Hayley Squires and stage and screen star Russell Tovey join John Macmillan and David Suchet in Lloyd’s playful productions of the comedic masterpieces The Lover and The Collection. Fresh from Netflix’s cult hit The End of the F**king World, Jessica Barden will lead the hilarious Pinter oddity, Night School. Following his exceptional performances in The Inheritance (Young Vic) and Albion (Almeida), Luke Thallon will feature as part of the Patrick Marber-directed The Room / Victoria Station / Family Voices, with a cast including Rupert Graves, Jane Horrocks, Emma Naomi and Nicholas Woodeson. Each evening runs for a very limited number of performances.
The World Premiere production of Pinter’s newly-discovered satirical sketch, The Pres and an Officer, an anarchic attack on the Presidency, will be performed alongside One for the Road, The New World Order, Mountain Language and Ashes to Ashes from September 6th to October 20th, directed by Jamie Lloyd.
Upon finding the sketch scrawled on one of Pinter’s writing pads, his widow, Lady Antonia Fraser commented: “I could have been reading something written today. ‘What would Harold have thought of Trump?’ People are always asking me that question. Now we know. As it were.”
The role of the President will be played by a variety of surprise guest stars across the short run.
Close friend and long-term Pinter collaborator Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey) will make 12 special guest appearances, performing the witty monologue, Tess, written for her by Pinter, from the 19th November as part of the performances of Landscape and A Kind of Alaska, starring Keith Allen and Tamsin Greig.
Marking the 10th anniversary of the revered playwright’s death, Pinter at the Pinter features all twenty of Pinter’s one-act plays, running from September 2018 to February 2019.
For full details visit pinteratthepinter.com
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