Stephen Mangan (pictured with Gemma Arterton) will join fellow comedy actor Miles Jupp in Sam Holcroft’s new play Rules For Living when it opens at the National Theatre next year.
Marianne Elliott’s production, the third show to open in the newly refurbished Dorfman Theatre, will play from 13 March.
Episodes and The Green Wing star Mangan, who was last seen on the London stage in Olivier Award-winning comedy Jeeves And Wooster In Perfect Nonsense, will be joined in the production by newly announced cast members Deborah Findlay and Maggie Service.
A regular at the National Theatre, having appeared in productions including The House Of Bernada Alba and The Winter’s Tale, Findlay returns to the London stage for the first time since the Tom Hiddleston-led production of Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse. Call The Midwife’s Service boasts NT credits including Rufus Norris’ production of Table and Olivier Award-winning play Collaborators. She will also appear in the forthcoming film adaptation of the National’s 2012 hit London Road.
A theatrically playful dark comedy, Rules For Living charts what happens when an extended family comes together for Christmas. Everyone creates their own coping strategies or rules for living, and each follows those rules rigidly, but when those strategies are clear for all to see – including the audience – accusations fly, relationships fall apart and the rules take over.
The production will open in the Dorfman following current hit Here Lies Love and Tom Stoppard’s new play The Hard Problem, which will mark the end of Nicholas Hytner’s tenure as the venue’s Director, from 21 January to 16 April.