Trevor Nunn will direct Rob Brydon, Nigel Harman and Ashley Jensen in Alan Ayckbourn’s A Chorus Of Disapproval, which will open at the Harold Pinter theatre this autumn.
The award-winning playwright’s 1984 comedy, which plays from 17 September, charts the story of shy young widower Guy Jones who joins an operatic society’s production of The Beggar’s Opera. An instant hit with the director and the show’s leading ladies, Guy soon realises that all the best action happens off stage.
Brydon, who is best known for his on screen appearances in comedy shows including I’m Alan Partridge, Gavin And Stacey and Would I Lie To You?, makes his West End acting debut in the production playing the operatic company’s ferociously zealous director Dafydd.
Olivier Award-winner Harman has traded in his knee-punishing performance as the unlucky in love Lord Farquaad in Shrek The Musical to become lord of the ladies as the play’s lead character whose liaisons with the opposite sex cause a stir in the wings of the ambitious local show.
Though best known for her screen work, which includes TV series Extras and Ugly Betty, Jensen, who plays the wife of Brydon’s Dafydd, has appeared on stage in Attempts On Her Life, Uganda and Storming at the Royal Court.
The trio of performers are joined by Teresa Banham, who previously worked with the legendary Les Misérables director on the RSC’s Measure For Measure and Blue Angel, star of Boeing-Boeing Daisy Beaumont, The Lion In Winter’s Steven Edis, star of Ayckbourn’s Neighbourhood Watch and Dear Uncle Matthew Cottle and The Bill’s Georgia Brown, who makes her West End debut in the production.
A Chorus Of Disapproval opens at the Harold Pinter theatre prior to Nunn’s previously announced productions of Samuel Beckett’s All That Fall at the Jermyn Street theatre and Cole Porter’s multi award-winning musical Kiss Me, Kate at the Old Vic. The comedy is currently booking until 5 January.