Robert Bathurst is to return to London with one-man show Alex, a comedy based on the Daily Telegraph’s cartoon investment banker, for an autumn season at the Leicester Square theatre.
The 75-minute show, which features Bathurst in the title role interacting with a host of animated characters from Alex’s two-dimensional world, was staged at the Arts theatre in July 2007. The production has undertaken a few re-writes since last summer to “take into account some minor corrections in the financial markets that have occurred over the last twelve months”.
Devious, manipulative investment banker Alex is finding it increasingly difficult to juggle his job, marriage and social life as crisis hits all three and threatens to ruin him. He is in trouble with his long-suffering wife Penny, who has finally turned the tables on him. The business fortunes of his client, Mr Hardcastle, drastically unravel and Alex is to blame. Meanwhile, the scams which Alex has made his way of life over the years are about to be revealed by a mole in his department. Alex faces abject humiliation unless he can stitch up his rivals first.
A stalwart of the business community, Alex started life in 1987, created by cartoonists Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor to chronicle the lives of the Big Bang wealth generation. As he has risen in the world of finance he has left behind both now defunct publication the London Daily News and The Independent to make himself a regular on the pages of the Daily Telegraph and win fans worldwide.
Bathurst’s previous stage performances have included Three Sisters, in which he starred opposite Kristin Scott Thomas, and Hedda Gabler alongside Francesca Annis. He most recently starred in the Laurence Olivier Award-nominated comedy Whipping It Up, though he is probably best known for playing David Marsden in television comedy-drama Cold Feet.
Bathurst is directed in Alex by Improbable Theatre’s Phelim McDermott, whose directorial credits include Laurence Olivier Award winner Shockheaded Peter and Theatre Of Blood.
The Leicester Square theatre is one of London’s newest venues. Previously operating as The Venue, the theatre, situated at the top of Leicester Square, has been refurbished and will re-open next week with Joan River bio-comedy, A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress.
Alex opens at the Leicester Square theatre on 27 November, following previews from 25 November, and runs until 20 December. Prior to its London engagement, Alex tours both nationally and internationally.
MA