DAVID Troughton will lead the cast in the 2016 tour of Goodnight Mister Tom in the role of Tom Oakley, visiting the Grand Opera House in York from March 29 to April 2.
The Chichester Festival Theatre production of Michelle Magorian's uplifting novel first played the Opera House in February 2013, when Olivier Award-winning veteran actor Oliver Ford Davies took the curmudgeonly role. David Wood’s stage adaptation won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment and Family.
Set during the build-up to the Second World War, Goodnight Mister Tom follows young William Beech, who is evacuated to the idyllic English countryside where he forges a heart-warming friendship with elderly recluse Tom Oakley.
David Troughton
David Troughton, brother of York Evangelical Church pastor Mark Troughton, is at present playing Tony Archer in BBC Radio 4's long-running rural soap opera The Archers. He has performed numerous times with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and his television appearances include Grantchester, Unforgotten and The Hollow Crown.
Goodnight Mister Tom is undertaking a strictly limited West End run at the Duke of York’s Theatre this Christmas before the tour opens in the spring, visiting Manchester, Milton Keynes, Glasgow, Birmingham, Oxford, York, Richmond, Aylesbury, Woking, Bath, Cambridge, Cardiff and Newcastle.
Troughton will be joined by an ensemble cast by Clark Devlin, Elisa de Grey, Guy Lewis, Simon Markey, Abigail Matthews, Jane Milligan, Martha Seignior, James Staddon, Melle Stewart, Georgina Sutton, and Hollie Taylor.
Six talented young performers have been cast in the key roles of William and Zach. Joe Reynolds, Freddy Hawkins and Alex Taylor-McDowall will alternate the role of William and Sonny Kirby, Harrison Noble and Oliver Loades will alternate as Zach.
Director Angus Jackson is joined in the creative team by designer Robert Innes Hopkins, lighting designer Tim Mitchell and sound designer Gregory Clarke, plus composer Matthew Scott, puppet maker and director Toby Olié and choreographer Lizzi Gee.
Magorian was inspired to write Goodnight Mister Tom after hearing her mother’s tales of her time as a nurse in the war. Published in 1981, it has been translated into 11 languages and won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the book, which was made into a BAFTA award-winning television film starring John Thaw in 1999.
David Wood, a prolific writer and director of plays and musicals for children, has two other shows running this Christmas: his Olivier-nominated production of The Tiger Who Came To Tea at the Lyric Theatre in London and his adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches, directed by North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster at the Leicester Curve.
Director Angus Jackson's forthcoming work includes directing James Fenton's new version of Don Quixote for the RSC’s 400th anniversary season, starring David Threlfall and Rufus Hound.
Tickets for Goodnight Mister Tom are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
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