John Lithgow and Nancy Carroll will star in Timothy Sheader’s production of The Magistrate, which plays as part of the National Theatre’s upcoming winter season.
Joining Arthur Wing Pinero’s fast and furious farce at the Southbank venue this winter is Simon Stephens’ Port, Alan Bennett’s Hymn and Cocktail Sticks and the return of The Animals And Children Took To The Streets along with previously announced productions of Bennett’s People, The Effect and Hansel And Gretel.
Tony Award-winner Lithgow, whose extensive acting credits include The World According To Garp, Terms Of Endearment and Footloose on screen and Sweet Smell Of Success and All My Sons on stage, will take on the title role in Pinero’s tale of a respectable magistrate who must preside in court following a night of police raids and outrageous mishaps involving himself, his wife and his stepson.
Also starring Olivier Award-winner and National Theatre regular Carroll, The Magistrate will play in the Olivier theatre from 14 November (press night 21 November), directed by Artistic Director of the Regent’s Park Open Air theatre Sheader, who makes his NT debut with the production.
Following last month’s announcement that Frances de la Tour will take to the Lyttelton’s stage in Bennett’s People, two of the playwright’s recollections Hymn and Cocktail Sticks will be seen on the same stage this winter.
Hymn, a memoir of music in childhood, will play from 22 November, followed by Cocktail Sticks, an oratorio without music that revisits some of the themes and conversations of Bennett’s memoir A Life Like Other People’s, from 5 December, starring Collaborators’ Alex Jennings.
Returning to the Lyttelton theatre following a sell-out run in the Cottesloe last year, The Animals And Children Took To The Streets will play 15 performances from 12 December to 10 January.
Devised by award-winning company 1927, the popular show combines live music, performance and storytelling with film and animation to take audiences on a theatrical journey through Bayou, where curtain-twitchers and peeping-toms live side by side and the wolf is always at the door.
Following his recent successful adaptation of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, the new year will see Stephens’ Port come to the Lyttelton theatre from 22 January (press night 28 January).
Set in 1988 Stockport, Port is the tale of 11-year-old Rachel and six-year-old Billy whose mother is about to leave them. Waiting excitedly in the car, fighting, chattering and dreaming of Disneyland, with their drunk father locked in the flat above, this is a pivotal moment for them both, as they begin a 13 year odyssey, abandoned and growing up in the deprived suburban shadows of Manchester.
Other previously announced highlights at the popular venue this winter include Billie Piper in Rupert Goold’s production of new play The Effect from the writer of ENRON and Katie Mitchell’s production of children’s favourite Hansel And Gretel.