Productions photos have been released for Theatre Royal Bath’s new adaptation of Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van.
Photography by Nobby Clark
In 1974, Miss Mary Shepherd, a homeless woman, temporarily moved her clapped out Bedford van into Alan Bennett’s front garden at Gloucester Crescent, Camden. She remained parked there for the next fifteen years.
Olivier Award-winner Sara Kestelman (Filthy Business, Copenhagen, Cabaret) stars as Bennett’s beloved character Miss Mary Shepherd. She is joined by Sam Alexander as Alan Bennett, William Gaunt as Underwood and James Northcote who will share the role of Alan Bennett. The full cast includes Emma Amos, Lia Burge, Paul Hickey, Gabrielle Lloyd, David Shaw Parker, Steve Simmonds and Cat Simmons.
THE LADY IN THE VAN
By Alan Bennett
Directed by Jonathan Church
Theatre Royal Bath, Sawclose, Bath, BA1 1ET
Thursday 17 August – Saturday 2 September Monday – Saturday, 7.30pm
Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Nica Burns are delighted to announce that Laurence Boswell’s critically acclaimed production of Daniel Kehlmann’s The Mentor will have a West End run at London’s Vaudeville Theatre from 24 June to 2 September.
The Mentor stars Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham as Benjamin Rubin, Daniel Weyman as Martin Wegner, Naomi Frederick as Gina Wegner and Jonathan Cullen as Erwin Rudicek.
The Mentor is directed by Olivier Award-winning Laurence Boswell who resides as Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio where the play celebrated a record-breaking run earlier this year, the most successful in the studio’s history. This production, translated by Academy Award-winning Christopher Hampton, marks the first time that bestselling author Daniel Kehlmann’s play has been performed outside of Germany.
In a dilapidated art nouveau villa, somewhere in the German countryside, two massive egos are set on a collision course in this perceptive and compelling comedy about art and artists and the legacy of fame.
F. Murray Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Salieri in Miloš Forman’s masterpiece Amadeus. His numerous other screen credits include Homeland, Mighty Aphrodite, Scarface, Finding Forrester, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Name of the Rose, The Good Wife, Inside Llewyn Davis and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Theatre credits include It’s Only A Play, Othello, Richard III and Uncle Vanya, for which he was awarded an Obie Award for Best Actor
Daniel Weyman’s previous credits for Theatre Royal Bath include Kafka’s Dick and King Lear. Additional theatre credits include Sideways (St James Theatre), 4000 Days (Park Theatre) and The Crucible (Bristol Old Vic). Television and film credits include Great Expectations, Foyle’s War and Silent Witness
Naomi Frederick’s theatre credits include Hobson’s Choice (Theatre Royal Bath and West End), The Heresy of Love, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe) and The Winslow Boy (Old Vic).
Jonathan Cullen starred in the Ustinov Studio’s production of Trouble in Mind. Additional theatre credits include Enemy of the People (Chichester Festival Theatre), Doctor Faustus (Shakespeare’s Globe) and Love the Sinner (National Theatre).
Daniel Kehlmann is a German-language author whose novel Measuring the World, sold three million copies in Germany alone and has been translated into more than 40 languages.
Christopher Hampton previously translated Florian Zeller’s play The Father for the Ustinov Studio, launching its international success. He won an Academy Award for the adaptation of his own play, Dangerous Liaisons
Laurence Boswell is an Olivier Award-winner, Artistic Director of the Ustinov Studio and an Associate Artist of the RSC. His recent productions include A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Theatre Royal’s Main House, and Trouble in the Mind, The Mother, Intimate Apparel and The Spanish Golden Age Season in the Ustinov Studio.
