Tom Bateman and Lucy Briggs-Owen will play the romantic leads in this year’s much anticipated stage adaptation of Shakespeare In Love.
The performers begin their romantic summer at the Noël Coward Theatre on 2 July before opening to the press on 23 July.
Bateman, who plays the eponymous playwright, has previously appeared in the West End as one of Shakespeare’s own creations, playing Claudio opposite David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing.
Briggs-Owen, who plays love interest and muse Viola De Lesseps, also has history with the Bard’s work. She played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Cressida in Troilus And Cressida at the Barbican. She can currently be seen at the Old Vic in Fortune’s Fool.
Based on the hit film with a screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, adapted for the stage by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall, Shakespeare In Love finds the famous playwright struggling with writer’s block. His inspiration arrives in the form of Viola De Lesseps. As his forbidden love for the noblewoman escalates, it draws in all manner of characters and leads to the writing of the world’s greatest love story.
Shakespeare In Love follows another stage to screen adaptation into the Noël Coward. The Full Monty, the tale of out-of-work steelworkers with an unusual money-making plan, runs from 20 February to 14 June.