Following its critically acclaimed reception at the Jermyn Street theatre earlier this month, Trevor Nunn’s production of All That Fall, starring theatrical greats Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon, will transfer to the Arts theatre.
Samuel Beckett’s little known drama will play a strictly limited season at the Leicester Square venue, running from 6 to 24 November with fellow cast members Oliver Barry-Brook, Ruairi Conaghan, Ian Conningham, Catherine Cusack, Aidan Dunlop, Frank Grimes, James Hayes and Gerard Horan also transferring with the production.
Originally commissioned as a radio play in 1957, All That Fall is set in rural Ireland and follows elderly Mrs Rooney (Atkins) on her way to meet her blind and ill-tempered husband (Gambon) at the train station. Along the way, she encounters Christy with his dung cart, old Tyler on his bicycle, Mr Slocum, a racecourse clerk, and Miss Fitt, a pious spinster.
Performed as if the audience are watching actors record the script for its original medium, scripts in hand and plenty of visible props creating necessary country sound effects, All That Fall offers a hilarious perspective on loss, grief and old age.
With such a high profile cast and acclaimed director at the helm, the Jermyn Street production was a sell-out success. The Guardian’s theatre critic Michael Billington awarded the production five stars, describing the production as: “Beckett at his most beguiling,” adding, “although the production’s impact depends upon the intimacy of the space, I just wish it could be televised so that both the play and Atkins’ performance could be relished by the many as well as the lucky few.”