Olivier Award nominated actor Tim Pigott-Smith will take the title role in the world premiere of Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III this spring alongside a company of London theatre regulars.
Directed by Rupert Goold, the production, which imagines the future of Britain’s most famous family when Prince Charles takes the throne after a lifetime of waiting, will play at the Almeida Theatre from 3 April to 31 May.
Enron star Pigott-Smith, who counts among his extensive theatre credits Almeida productions including A Delicate Balance and The Iceman Cometh, is joined in the cast by Katie Brayben, Oliver Chris, Richard Goulding, Nyasha Hatendi, Adam James, Margot Leicester, Tom Robertson, Nicholas Rowe, Nick Sampson, Lydia Wilson and recent graduate Tafline Steen.
Like their leading king, many of the cast will make their Almeida Theatre returns in the production. Brayben appeared in Goold’s recent critically acclaimed American Psycho, while Goulding appeared in King Lear, Olivier Award nominated Leicester was last seen at the Islington theatre in Knot Of The Heart and National Theatre regular Sampson in David Mamet’s Romance.
The remaining cast are all equally familiar faces on the London stage. Chris was last seen in the capital in his Olivier Award nominated role in One Man, Two Guvnors, which he played at the National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway. Fellow NT performer Robertson was last seen in the institution’s hit productions of Othello and Timon Of Athens, while James, who recently finished a run at the Hampstead Theatre in Rapture Blister Burn, has appeared in 13, Blood And Gifts and Gethsemane at the Southbank venue.
Completing the cast is Hatendi, whose extensive credits include The Epic Adventure Of Nhamo… at the Tricycle Theatre and The Brothers Size at the Young Vic, current star of the Rose Theatre’s Kingston’s Donkey’s Years Rowe and Wilson, who follows acclaimed appearances in productions including Hysteria (Hampstead Theatre), Blasted (Lyric Hammersmith) and the Royal Court’s The Acid Test and The Heretic to make her Almeida debut in Bartlett’s latest work.
King Charles III joins the European premiere of Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns in Goold’s inaugural season as Artistic Director of the renowned Islington theatre.