Olivier Award-winning actress Samantha Spiro is to give her premiere performance at the Almeida theatre in the title role of Eduardo De Filippo’s Filumena this spring.
The actress, who picked up London theatre’s most coveted prize for her starring performance in 2009’s Hello, Dolly! will play a woman who, having been kept as a mistress for 25 years, is finally married to her lover while lying on her deathbed. No sooner is the ceremony over, however, than she makes a miraculous recovery. It’s just one of the many tricks she has up her sleeve.
Spiro, whose stage credits also include Chicken Soup With Barley (Royal Court) and Two Thousand Years (National Theatre), is joined in the cast by Clive Wood, who plays surprised spouse Domenico. Wood, a Royal Shakespeare Company regular, has most recently been seen in the Trevor Nunn-productions of The Tempest and Flare Path.
The cast also includes Benidorm’s Sheila Reid, who spent seven years as part of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company, Emily Plumtree and Richard Riddell, who appeared together in Rupert Goold’s 2011 production of The Merchant Of Venice, RSC veteran Geoffrey Freshwater, Victoria Lloyd, Luke Norris, Brodie Ross and Edmund Wiseman.
Almeida Artistic Director Michael Attenborough directs the show, which runs from 15 March to 12 May, following The House Of Bernarda Alba, which opens at the Islington venue next week starring Him And Her’s Sarah Solemani, The Crimson Petal And The White’s Amanda Hale and Iranian Oscar-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo.
MA