Cast announced for Mark Giesser’s The Devil May Care, an electrifying new adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple, playing at the Southwark Playhouse Borough Wednesday 8th January – Saturday 1st February 2025
Who’s in the cast?
The cast is led by Callum Woodhouse (Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small; Leslie Durrell in The Durrells; Filthy Business, Hampstead Theatre), Beth Burrows (The Lady with a Dog, Upstairs at the Gatehouse/Tabard Theatre; Bell, Book and Candle, Tabard Theatre; Call Me Madam, Upstairs at the Gatehouse – Off West End Award for Best Supporting Actress 2022) and Richard Lynson (Rain Man; The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged, Criterion Theatre; The Lady With a Dog, Upstairs at The Gatehouse).
The supporting cast is comprised of Jill Greenacre (The Brittas Empire; Andy Robson; Brookside; Nowhere; Closer, UK National Tour; Jane Eyre, UK National Tour; My Cousin Rachel, UK National Tour; Rebecca, UK National Tour), Enzo Benvenuti (The Boys From Syracuse, Upstairs at the
Gatehouse); Romeo & Juliet, European Tour; A Christmas Carol, European Tour; The Great Game; Renegade Nell) and Izyan Hay (Mission Impossible 8; Next, Please, Almeida Theatre; Dogeaters, New Earth Theatre).
Creative team
Director Mark Giesser, Costumes Alice McNicholas, Lighting Sam M Owen, Set Intellectual Propery, Stage Manager Honor Klein.
Director Mark Giesser comments, Both in Shaw’s play and in my adaptation, the two principal characters of Richard, the ‘Devil’s disciple’, and Judith, the minister’s wife, are faced with the question of sacrifice. For Richard, it’s discovering if he’s capable of forfeiting his life to demonstrate a personal honour with which he isn’t credited and may not care about. For Judith, it’s discovering whether she has the capacity to allow an innocent man to die in place of her husband.
Both Callum Woodhouse and Beth Burrows are actors of depth and sensitivity who can wrestle with these questions while also expressing the nuances of Shavian irony in the story. The Devil’s Disciple was the play that took George Bernard Shaw from drama critic to professional playwright, owing to its commercial success, yet today it is rarely adapted for the modern stage. This is in spite of a glittering film history, with notable adaptations including the 1959 Hollywood production starring Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Laurence Olivier, and a 1987 BBC television production with Patrick Stewart in the lead role. Giesser’s production brings it back to the London stage at last.
What’s the show about?
‘I had an inkling from an early age that the Devil was my natural master, captain and friend.’
Giesser’s urgent and timely new interpretation is set during the Philippine-American War (1899-1913), against a background of imperial power, racial intolerance and terrible choices. It investigates the fundamental question at the centre of war – who is really good, and who is really evil?
In a case of mistaken identity, Richard Conroe, a disreputable American trader, is arrested by the US military occupying the small Philippine town in which this drama is set. He is thought to be an English minister wanted on suspicion of treason – and the minister’s wife, Judith, is determined to reveal the true facts, even though to do so would mean certain death for her husband. Richard, however, is willing to keep up the act and die for crimes he did not commit. A self-defined disciple of the Devil, the motive of Richard’s willingness to sacrifice his life for a stranger is unknown.
Assisted performances
Relaxed –
Captioned –
Audio Described –
British Sign Language (BSL) –
