Lauded performers Rory Kinnear and Helen McCrory will be back at the National Theatre this summer, starring alongside Julie Walters in The Last Of The Haussmans.
The first play from screenwriter Stephen Beresford, which also stars Matthew Marsh and runs in the Lyttelton theatre from June, tells the story of a high society drop out (Walters), who, following an operation, is joined at her home on the Devon Coast by her wayward offspring (Kinnear and McCrory), her granddaughter, a local doctor (Marsh) and the teenager who likes to use her swimming pool. Together they spend a summer both clinging to and trying to flee her louche, chaotic world.
Kinnear, whose films include Quantum Of Solace and Mansfield Park, last appeared at the National in the title role of Hamlet, winning the Evening Standard’s Best Actor Award for his performance. McCrory returns to the South Bank having previously appeared in Blood Wedding and The Seagull.
Other casting for the National’s summer season has also been revealed, with Niamh Cusack, Una Stubbs, Luke Treadaway and Nicola Walker all set to appear in Simon Stephens’s stage adaptation of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, a tale of an autistic teenager and a canine murder. The play, directed by Marianne Elliot, runs in the Cottesloe theatre from July as part of the London 2012 Festival and is suitable for theatregoers aged 13 and older.
NT regular Simon Russell Beale is to be joined in Timon Of Athens, which is part of the World Shakespeare Festival, by Martin Chamberlain, Jason Cheater, Stavros Demetraki, Paul Dodds, Deborah Findlay, Ciaran McMenamin and Nick Sampson. Nicholas Hytner directs Shakespeare’s tale of a wealthy philanthropist who sees his friends slip away when he falls on hard times when it plays in the Olivier theatre from July.
Tom Burke, Aden Gillett, Paul McLeary, Genevieve O’Reilly and Malcolm Sinclair take to the Lyttelton stage from July to star in Bernard Shaw’s story of a revolutionary doctor and a persuasive patient, The Doctor’s Dilemma, which runs from July.
Today’s casting news, which also includes Will Adamsdale joining the cast of Detroit and Jamie Ballard, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Annabel Scholey joining Antigone, comes as tickets for the National Theatre’s eagerly anticipated winter family show The Count Of Monte Cristo go on sale.