West End regular Amanda Drew is to join Dominic West in the forthcoming revival of Simon Gray’s comedy Butley, which plays at the Duchess theatre from 1 June to 27 August (press night 6 June).
Drew, who plays the estranged wife of West’s university lecturer Ben Butley, is no stranger to Gray’s work, having appeared in the 2005 revival of his Otherwise Engaged at the Criterion theatre. Her other recent credits include House Of Games and Parlour Song at the Almeida theatre, The Ugly One and Faces In the Crowd at the Royal Court, the hit play Enron at the Royal Court and Noël Coward theatre and, most recently, Peter Hall’s production of Twelfth Night at the National’s Cottesloe theatre.
Drew joins a cast that includes the previously announced Paul McGann and Penny Downie, along with Martin Hutson, who returns to the Duchess theatre where he appeared in Taking Sides/Collaboration in 2009. Cai Brigden and Emma Hiddleston complete the cast.
Originally directed by Harold Pinter in a 1971 premiere production starring Alan Bates, Gray’s play takes a darkly comic look at academia, centring on English scholar Ben Butley, a gleeful troublemaker whose life is disintegrating around him.
Directed by Lindsay Posner, Butley plays at the Duchess theatre following Sign Of The Times, which ends on 2 April, and a brief run for Hampstead theatre transfer Ecstasy.
CB