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Dateline: 23rd March, 2008

Higgins to Return to the National
Clare Higgins, currently playing Lady Undershaft in Shaw's Major Barbara at the National Theatre, will return there in the autumn to play Jocasta in Jonathan Kent's production of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in a version by Frank McGuinness. Ralph Fiennes will play Oedipus.

Chichester Funny Girl Casting
Casting has been announced for the production of Funny Girl which will open this year's Chichester Festival in the Minerva Studio on 8th May (previews from 28th April).

Playing Fanny Brice is Olivier winner Samantha Spiro (Merrily We Roll Along; Two Thousand Years; Cleo, Camping, Emanuelle and Dick) and her husband, Nick Arnstein, will be played by Mark Umbers (NT's My Fair Lady, The Glass Menagerie in the West End, Candide, Troilus and Cressida and The Merchant of Venice at the National).

Also in the cast are Sheila Steafel (Mrs. Brice), Myra Sands (Mrs. Strakosh), Cornelius Clarke (Keeney), Cara Elston (Mrs. Meeker), Joanna Goodwin (Mrs. O'Malley), Amy Ellen Richardson (Mimsey) and Amy Rockson (Emma). The ensemble is Kevin Brewis, Anna Carmichael, Kate Cobb, Charlene Ford, David Killick, David Lucas, Abigail Rosser and Laura Scott.

Directed by Angus Jackson and choreographed by Stephen Mear, it runs until 14th June.

Viva la Diva! Arena Tour
Darcy Bussell and Katherine Jenkins' Viva la Diva! which had a successful theatre tour last year, is to visit a number of arenas during April and May. It will visit Newcastle Arena (29th April), Belfast Odyssey (2nd May), Cardiff International Arena (4th and 5th May), Birmingham NIA Academy (7th May), Sheffield Hallam FM Arena (8th May), London O2 Arena (10th and 11th May) and Manchester MEN Arena (14th May).

More Casting News
Saskia Reeves and Rafe Spall are to appear in Athol Fugard's two-hander Hello and Goodbye at Trafalgar Studio 2 from 24th April (previews from 22nd) to 17th May. Paul Robinson directs. Set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, under the oppressive cloud of apartheid, Johnny is reunited with his estranged sister Hester. Surrounded by the squalor of their neglected and brutalised lives, raw memories come spilling out in a night of tense, distressing disclosure.

Triptych by Edna O'Brien opens at Southwark Playhouse on 11th April with (previews from 9th) and runs until 9th May, with leading South African actress Terry Norton in the role of the cheated wife and Orla Brady playing the Mistress. Jessica Ellerby plays the Daughter. The production is directed by Sean Mathias. A wife, a mistress and a daughter circumnavigate a husband, a lover and a father in a poignant study of love and obsession. Triptych is a portrait of a man seen through the eyes of his three women, exploring sex, marriage and damaged relationships where love can both liberate and entrap.

Jo Stone-Fewings is to take over the part of Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps (Criterion) from 28th April.

Extending
Billy Elliot the Musical (Victoria Palace) is now booking until 11th April, 2009.

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News Archive A-L
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Production News Archive

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©Peter Lathan 2008