As the summer theatre season gets into full swing – regardless of any watery droplets hanging around in the air – the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has released the first images of its Hobson’s Choice cast.
Harold Brighouse’s drama about a controlling bootmaker who refuses to let his daughters marry to avoid the hassle of any expensive settlements does not take to the stage until mid-June. But with its cast now ensconced in the rehearsal room, the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has given us a glimpse of how they might look on stage.
There’s Mark Benton, formerly of Waterloo Road and the RSC’s Richard III but latterly a hip-swivelling star of Strictly Come Dancing, playing the titular Henry Hobson looking every inch the scruffy, strong-willed patriarch.
There’s al fresco theatre regular Jodie McNee, who previously starred in King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe looking equally stern as Maggie, who rebels against her father and sets her sights on one of his bootmakers.
There’s Kingdom and Game Of Thrones star Karl Davies, looking a little on the bemused side as the chosen cobbler Willy Mossop.
The rest of the cast, which includes Kate Adler, Robin Bowerman, Hannah Britland, Nadia Clifford, Joanna David, Bill Fellows, Jordan Metcalfe, Leon Williams and Richard Syms will, for the moment, have to be imagined.
Hobson’s Choice plays as part of a dramatic season of shows at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre this summer. It opens following Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and is follows by a children’s version of Twelfth Night, folk opera The Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess and the revival of the theatre’s 2013 hit To Kill A Mockingbird.