Actress Finty Williams will play Barbara Jackson, a role originated by her mother, Dame Judi Dench, in the upcoming Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Pack Of Lies.
Williams will star opposite Jasper Britton (star of the Menier’s Little Shop Of Horrors) – playing Stewart – in the exciting new production.
Williams’ previous theatre credits include The Divide (The Old Vic), Blithe Spirit (The Mill at Sonning), Dinner With Friends (Park Theatre), and The Vote (Donmar Warehouse – also More4). Britton, meanwhile, has performed in the likes of Scrooge, What The Butler Saw (Curve, Leicester), The Blinding Light (Jermyn Street Theatre), and The Libertine (Theatre Royal Bath and Theatre Royal Haymarket).
Hannah Chissick directs the first London revival of Hugh Whitemore’s Pack Of Lies since it premiered at the Lyric Theatre in 1983, when it starred real life husband and wife Judi Dench and Michael Williams. Dench received an Olivier Award for her performance.
The Jacksons are a nice middle aged English couple. Their best friends are the Krogers, their Canadian neighbours. All is blissful in their world until a detective from Scotland Yard asks to use their house as an observation station to foil a Soviet spy ring operating in the area. They are really put to the test when the detective asks them to help set a trap. Should they betray their friends… Or their country?
Whitemore adapted Pack of Lies from his Act of Betrayal which was part of the Play for Today television series. Inspired by a real-life events, the story is based on Bill and Ruth Search and their teenage daughter Gay Search (who later became a television presenter and journalist), who find themselves at the centre of the investigations into the Portland Soviet spy ring.
Performances of Pack Of Lies begin 20 September.
Tickets are available through the Menier Chocolate Factory website.