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Dateline: 4th March, 2007
Forgotten Classics at the King's Head Featuring six outstanding plays rarely - if ever - seen in Britain before, the Primavera Productions Forgotten Classics series at the King’s Head is a unique chance to see the work of some of the world’s finest playwrights. Tom Littler directs full-scale casts of West End actors in rehearsed readings ranging from Elizabethan comedy to Romantic drama, including the first play ever written in English by a woman, a play written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, not performed for over 100 years; Virginia Woolf's only play; the source for several of Shakespeare's comedies; and the British premieres of plays by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams. The first in the series is Byron's Manfred. When George Gordon, Lord Byron, wrote Manfred in 1817, he was a global superstar - a writer, lover, and revolutionary of unimaginable fame. It should have been easy to get his play performed. But thanks to its treatment of incest and blasphemy, Byron's greatest play was banned and was never to be performed. 190 years later, the most scandalously neglected play of the Romantic age is finally performed in London on Sunday 11th March, starring a cast that includes a direct descendant of Byron himself. Manfred will be played by Harry Lloyd, who is best known as Will Scarlett in the BBC’s Robin Hood, and is about to star as Jeremy Baines in Doctor Who. He recently won critical acclaim playing John in Neil LaBute’s BASH at the Trafalgar Studios. Past work includes the major television adaptations of David Copperfield and Goodbye Mr Chips. Lloyd will be joined by Simon Poland – a direct descendant of Lord Byron – as the Abbot of St Maurice. In a distinguished career on stage and screen, Poland’s recent work includes the feature films Children of Men and United 93. They are joined by young actors Timothy Allsop (Therese Raquin at the National Theatre) as Manuel, Davina Silver (The Powerbook at the National Theatre) as a Spirit, and Dan Cade, a member of the BBC Dead Ringers team who has just finished filming the lead role of Trent Button opposite Diana Quick in the feature film Trent 2 Rent, as Nemesis. Manfred will be performed at the King's Head at 8pm on Sunday 11th March. The rest of the season consists of:
Primavera Productions was founded in the summer of 2003 by Tom Littler for a modern-dress production of The Importance of Being Earnest. The Oxford Times described Primavera in 2005 as a major influence on drama itself and The Scotsman billed it in 2006 as a hugely talented company. It focuses on the production of revivals. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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