Felix Hayes is to return to the Royal Shakespeare Company to play General Braggadocio in Phil Porter’s new play Vice Versa (or the Decline and Fall of General Braggadocio at the hands of his canny servant Dexter and Terence the monkey).
Hayes was last at the RSC in 2012 for the the What Country Friends is this? season. He played Mr Rochester in the 2015 National Theatre / Bristol Old Vic production of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Playing his servant Dexter is Sophia Nomvete. Her credits include Audrey in As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2015 and Sofia in The Color Purple – The Musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2013.
Kim Hartman makes her RSC debut as Climax. She is known for playing Private Helga Geerhart in the classic TV series ‘Allo ‘Allo. She also took the role of Miss Gibson in the 2010 UK tour of Denise Deegan’s Daisy Pulls It Off.
The cast of Vice Versa also includes Ellie Beaven (Voluptua), Nicholas Day (Philoproximus), Bally Gill (Roman), Laura Kirman (Impetus), Steven Kynman (Feclus), Geoffrey Lumb (Valentin), Byron Mondahl (Omnivorous), Esther Niles (Roman), Harriet Slater (Roman), Katherine Toy (Roman), Jon Trenchard (Terence) and Johnson Willis (Ocadus).
The play involves a wily servant and a pair of wronged young lovers teaming up to bamboozle a pompous general. Dodgy disguises, comic capers and a talking monkey create pandemonium as the tricksters try to save the girl, free the servant and live to tell the tale.
Vice Versa by Phil Porter is “lovingly ripped off from the plays of Plautus”. Janice Honeyman directs. Design is by Colin Richmond with lighting by Caroline Burrell. Music is by Sam Kenyon and sound by Jono Ruddick. Movement is by Michael Ashcroft.
Vice Versa runs in the Swan Theatre, Stratford from Thursday 11 May until Saturday 9 September. Press night is Thursday 18 May.