Sean Foley will make his Royal Shakespeare Company directorial debut with Thomas Middleton’s comedy A Mad World My Masters.
Sean Foley and Phil Porter’s edited version of Middleton’s play is faithful to the original text but adapts it to fit the seedy world of 1950s Soho.
Characters’ names have been updated and the play includes songs of the time “to enhance the biting satire of lust and deception in the life of Bohemian London”.
This will be the first time the play has been performed at the RSC which has only ever staged four Middleton plays.
The last was in 2006 when Laurence Boswell directed Women Beware Women which featured Penelope Wilton and Tim Pigott-Smith.
Sean Foley said of A Mad World My Masters, “After working on it for two weeks in the RSC Studio, we came to one simple conclusion: this is one of the most hilariously wicked plays ever written.
“If new, it might be hailed as the bastard offspring of Richard Sheridan and Joe Orton.
“Outrageous and sweetly daft, modern but timeless, it mixes profound wit and slapstick, poetics and on-the-nose jokes in a unique way—yet still manages to keep us interested in its marvellous parade of characters striving to find their way to love and fortune in a recognisably fast-paced London.
“I wanted to try to make sure everyone could laugh like they must have done in 1605: uproariously, and at ourselves.
“So we decided to cut away innuendoes, references and allusions to things no one has heard of any more, to change names when Middleton’s joke could be rendered more clearly with modern language and to ‘translate’ Jacobean English into our own contemporary idioms in those few passages where we judged that Middleton’s intentions and humour would be too buried in inaccessible language.”
Richard Goulding returns to the RSC as Dick Follywit. He last appeared at the RSC in the double bill of Trevor Nunn’s King Lear and The Seagull in 2007 which toured internationally after its première at The Courtyard Theatre.
He played Edgar to Jonathan Pryce’s King Lear at the Almeida in 2012 and appeared as George in Posh at the Royal Court.
Richard is joined by John Hopkins as Penitent Brothel. He is known for his regular role of Sgt Scott opposite John Nettles in the ITV series Midsomer Murders and also appeared in the Stephen Poliakoff TV series Dancing on the Edge.
Sarah Ridgeway, in the role of Truly Kidman, also returns to the RSC where she last performed in Roy Williams’s play Days of Significance in 2009.
Most of the cast also appear in Titus Andronicus this season in the Swan.
The cast also includes: Joe Bannister (footman), Ellie Beaven (Mrs Littledick), Ishia Bennison (Mrs Kidman), Ben Deery (Sponger), Richard Durden (Spunky), Gwilym Lloyd (caretaker/Sir Aquitaine Squodge), Harry McEntire (Oboe), Perry Millward (waiter/footman), Ciarán Owens (Master Whopping Prospect), Nicholas Prasad (Master Muchly Minted), Ian Redford (Sir Bounteous Progress), Rose Reynolds (debutante/escort), Steffan Rhodri (Mr Littledick), David Rubin (private detective/Andrew Skunknodger), Badria Timimi (waitress/escort), Dwane Walcott (Constable) and Jonny Weldon (waiter/footman).
The production is designed by Alice Power, with lighting by James Farncombe and sound design and music by Ben and Max Ringham.
Choreography is by Kate Prince and fight direction by Alison de Burgh.
A Mad World My Masters runs in the Swan at Stratford from 6 June (press night 13 June) until 25 October.