As if the season weren’t looking star-studded enough. Theatre legends Sir Antony Sher and Penelope Wilton have been cast in Jamie Lloyd’s Pinter At The Pinter season, along with young stars Russell Tovey, Jessica Barden, Kate O’Flynn and Luke Thallon.
The casting represents the Pinter play debuts of Tovey (Angels In America, National Theatre), Barden (The End Of The F**king World, Netflix), O’Flynn (Olivier Award-nominated for The Glass Menagerie, West End), Squires (I, Daniel Blake on film) and Thallon (The Inheritance, Young Vic), as his work is performed by an entirely new generation.
The latest cast members join a raft of stars in the season, including David Suchet, Tamsin Greig, Martin Freeman, Tracy Ann Oberman, Danny Dyer, Paapa Essiedu, Gary Kemp, Maggie Steed, and, most recently announced, Sir Mark Rylance.
Stars including David Suchet, Tamsin Greig, Martin Freeman, Tracy Ann Oberman and Danny Dyer will also perform in Pinter At The Pinter season
Sher and O’Flynn both join the previously-announced Essiedu and Steed in the season’s explosive opening, One For The Road/The New World Order/Mountain Language/Ashes To Ashes, directed by Jamie Lloyd and Lia Williams.
Sher, who is also making his Pinter debut, said: “This is a very special project for me – I’ve always longed to be in a Pinter play, and now at last I’ve got my chance. And what a play this is!… it’s breathtaking.”
It was also announced that the first production of Pinter’s newly-discovered comedy sketch, The Pres And An Officer, will be performed alongside the four plays. Found by his widow Lady ANtonia Fraser on one of Pinter’s writing pads, the piece will be performed with a variety of surprise guest stars playing the President across the short run.
BAFTA nominee Squires and stage and screen star Tovey join John Macmillan and Suchet in comedies The Lover/The Collection, while Barden leads the hilarious Pinter oddity Night School.
Rising stage star Thallon will be directed by Patrick Marber in The Room/Victoria Station/Family Voices, alongside Rupert Graves, Jane Horrocks, Emma Naomi and Nicholas Woodeson.
Meanwhile, Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey), a close friend of Pinter’s, will make 12 special guest appearances, performing the witty monologue, Tess, written for her by Pinter. These performances will take place from the 19 November as part of the performances of Landscape/A Kind Of Alaska, starring Keith Allen and Tamsin Greig.
Marking the 10th anniversary of the revered playwright’s death, Pinter At The Pinter features all twenty of Pinter’s one-act plays, running at the Harold Pinter Theatre from September 2018 to February 2019.
More information and tickets to all Pinter At The Pinter shows are available through our London Theatre Tickets page.