RENOWNED Shakespearean actor Michael Pennington will reprise his role as King Lear in York in May after first playing him at the Shakespeare Center in New York in 2014.
The two-time Olivier Award nominee will embark on a British tour to nine regional venues from April to July in association with the Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton, where the production will open with a three-week run.
The tour is to be mounted by the Ambassador Theatre Group, owners of the Grand Opera House in York, which will play host to King Lear from May 23 to 28 in its only Yorkshire dates.
In Shakespeare’s epic tragedy, an ageing tyrant’s decision to divide his kingdom tears apart his family, sparks catastrophic civil war and destroys all that he has.
Driven from his home, King Lear endures madness and great suffering as he battles a storm. Yet with madness he finds reason, after betrayal he discovers loyalty and through his suffering a better world emerges.
The Brooklyn Eagle said of Pennington's performance in New York: “Michael Pennington will break your heart. One of England’s foremost classical actors, this is a King Lear to grieve for in Shakespeare's darkest play”.
He will be joined by a distinguished cast of 13 in a touring production directed by Philip Franks, whose directing credits include five years as an associate director at Chichester Festival Theatre and The Duchess Of Malfi at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.
Beth Cooke will play Lear's youngest daughter, Cordelia, having first done so at The Abbey Theatre, Dublin. She starred as Hero in the Old Vic's Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Mark Rylance, and as Irina in Chekhov's Three Sisters, directed by Sarah Frankcom for Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester.
Pip Donaghy will be Gloucester; Joshua Elliott, the Fool; Gavin Fowler, Edgar; Scott Karim, Edmund, and Daniel O’Keefe, Oswald.
Sir Howard Panter, Ambassador Theatre Group's joint chief executive, says: "The eyes of the world will be on Britain this year, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. To mark this significant year, we're delighted to be bringing this major new production of King Lear to so many regional British playhouses and I'm particularly proud that Michael Pennington, one of the finest Shakespearian actors of our time, will be playing Lear.”
Pennington’s stage career spans more than 50 years, not least with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1964 to 1966 and 1974 to 1981. In 1984, his role in Tolstoy's Strider at the National Theatre brought him his first Olivier nomination; in 1987, his second followed for Jack Cade in Henry VI Part 2, part of the English Shakespeare Company's seven-play history cycle of The Wars Of The Roses, that later played the 1988 York Festival.
In 2012, he was Antony to Kim Cattrall's Cleopatra at Chichester. He has since appeared as Edgar in Strindberg's The Dance Of Death, adapted by Howard Brenton at the Gate Theatre, and as John of Gaunt in Richard II for the RSC, and Anthony Blunt in Alan Bennett's Single Spies at the Rose Theatre, Kingston.
The 2016 production of King Lear is suitable for age 14 upwards. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
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