National Theatre has announced dates for Nye, a co-production with the Wales Millennium Centre starring Michael Sheen as Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan, creator of the NHS, beginning in February 2024 in London. More details below:
Ler maisThe National Theatre has revealed an array of upcoming productions while also confirming further details about recently announced shows.
All of those discussed below are set to go on sale to the public on Thursday, 9 November, while some will also have a trialled 6.30pm start time.
Further details have been revealed for Nye, a new play by Tim Price, directed by Rufus Norris and running in the Olivier Theatre. Delving into the life of Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan, Michael Sheen will lead a cast also composed of Remy Beasley, Roger Evans, Jon Furlong, Stephanie Jacob, Kezrena James, Tony Jayawardena, Rebecca Killick, Rhodri Meilir and Sharon Small.
The set designer is Vicki Mortimer, costume designer Kinnetia Isidore, lighting designer Paule Constable, co-choreographers Steven Hoggett and Jess Williams, composer Will Stuart, sound designer Donato Wharton, projection designer Jon Driscoll and casting director Alastair Coomer CDG.
The play is set to run in the Olivier Theatre from 24 February until 11 May, with the press night scheduled for 6 March. Notably, Nye is a co-production with the Wales Millennium Centre, where it will be staged from 18 May to 1 June.
Nye is among the 12 new productions announced by National Theatre; it will open next February. More below:
A play charting the life of Nye Bevan and his battle to create the NHS is among 12 new productions that have been announced by the National Theatre.
Nye, by Tim Price, was described by the National as a “Welsh fantasia [that] is both epic and deeply personal”. It will star Michael Sheen and be directed by Rufus Norris, the National’s artistic director who’s stepping down in 2025.
“After the turmoil of recent years, we all appreciate how vital the NHS is,” said Norris. The play would “illuminate the life of its founder and celebrate its centrality within British life”.
Bevan, a miner’s son from south Wales, was the architect of the 1948 National Health Service Act that allowed people access to medical diagnosis and treatment, free at the point of use. The creation of the NHS is considered the most significant reform in the history of the Labour party.
Nye will open in February 2024.
24 years after playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at Broadway, Michael Sheen will now play his rival, Antonio Salieri, in a new show set to begin in December. Click here for the presale. More below:
Ler maisMichael Sheen, the beloved Welsh actor known for his roles in The Queen, Frost/Nixon and Masters of Sex, is making his first trip to Australia at the end of this year for an exclusive season of Amadeus at the Sydney Opera House.
Peter Shaffer’s Tony Award-winning production – a fictionalised account of the relationship between 18th century composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri – is the first show that has been announced from the Opera House’s upcoming 50th anniversary program. It will run in the newly renovated Concert Hall which has been closed for the past two years, and Sheen will play the lead role.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Sheen tells The Sydney Morning Herald. “But I have a little bit of trepidation as well.”
To celebrate the first time Dylan Thomas’s classic Under Milk Wood was read on May 14, 1953 in New York, Michael Sheen recorded a performance of “Do not go gentle into that good night” for National Theatre, which you can watch in the video below.
Under Milk Wood marks the reopening of the National Theatre after months closed due to the pandemic. Set to open on June 16, the production features Karl Johnson and Siân Phillips and is directed by Lindsey Turner. More information here.
Check out some screencaptures from the video:
According to Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye, the play will be directed by Lyndsey Turner and is set to open in June. More below:
Celebrated Welsh stars Michael Sheen and Sian Phillips will lead the National Theatre out of lockdown with a jam-packed production of Dylan Thomas’s masterpiece Under Milk Wood.
Olivier award-winning director Lyndsey Turner, an associate of the NT, will stage Thomas’s play for voices in the Olivier Theatre.
The National’s hierarchy had considered reopening its South Bank complex with a new work, a move felt more appropriate for the occasion by some.
However, they were persuaded by Turner’s apparently ‘visionary’ ideas of staging Under Milk Wood, which took Thomas close to 20 torturous years to finally complete.
(The first full version of the radio play was broadcast from Manhattan cultural and community centre 92nd Street Y in 1954).
The plan is for the work to begin previews at the NT from June 16, with an official opening night on June 26.
Both Sheen and Phillips have form with Under Milk Wood. They took part in a BBC Wales commemorative version, to celebrate the centenary of the poet’s birth in 2014; and have been associated with several other productions. Sheen also directed a reading, on the 92Y stage where the play made its debut.
Set in the fictional Welsh fishing village of Llareggub (bugger-all, backwards), the scabrous piece charts a day in the life of the area’s colourful inhabitants who have been ‘lulled and dumbfounded’ by events; which seems fitting, given the current circumstances. (More cast are being assembled to play the residents of Llareggub.)
Michael Sheen, David Threlfall and Indira Varma discuss being back on stage at Old Vic for Brian Friel’s play. Tickets are still on sale here and can be purchased up to 24 hours before each show.
Also, check out some photos from Faith Healer rehearsals on our gallery:
Ler maisFor many, it is his greatest play. Northern Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Faith Healer (1979) is a haunting and transfixing piece of theatre: a drama that shape-shifts as tantalisingly as memory. And, like all masterpieces, it feels both timeless and timely. Yet, says actor Michael Sheen, who plays lead character Frank in a new live-streamed performance opening tonight at London’s Old Vic, “When it first came out there was a big discussion about whether it was even dramatic at all.”
“I find that extraordinary,” he adds. “It’s one of the most thrilling theatrical experiences I’ve had.”
On the surface, it’s certainly simple: a series of monologues on a near-empty stage. Three narrators — Frank, the itinerant Irish “faith healer” of the title; Grace, his wife; Teddy, his cockney manager — address us separately, recalling their ramshackle lives on the road, as they traipsed round remote parts of Scotland and Wales trying to drum up business with a shabby poster. Each character takes their turn in the limelight. At the Old Vic, Sheen heads up a stellar cast, with Indira Varma playing Grace and David Threlfall taking the part of Teddy.
Today The Old Vic announced Brian Friel’s Faith Healer will be the third production in the Old Vic: In Camera live stream series, and will star Michael Sheen, David Threlfall and Indira Varma. More about the play:
Ler mais‘Just a con, isn’t it? Just an illusion, isn’t it?’
The Fantastic Francis Hardy (Michael Sheen) travels the most remote corners of Wales, Scotland and Ireland attempting to heal those who wish to be healed. His wife Grace (Indira Varma) and manager Teddy (David Threlfall) complete this nomadic triptych, each with their own telling of the loss, love and struggle of life on the road with a seemingly predestined Faith Healer.
Brian Friel’s masterful and haunting Faith Healer is a kaleidoscopic, ever shifting exploration of the power of belief, as the contradicting recollections of these three characters seek to reconcile with the past.
Faith Healer is the third in the Old Vic: In Camera live streamed performances, and will be streamed live directly from the iconic Old Vic stage with the empty auditorium as a backdrop for five performances only.
DAD, short play written by Gary Owen for Sheridan Theatre and performed by Michael Sheen, was released today and is available until May 18. Watch now:
We also invite you to watch Lynn Hunter in MUM, also available until next Monday:
Both plays can be watched for free, but if you can, please consider helping the Sheridan Theatre by donating here.
The Sheman Theatre announced today two short plays written by Gary Owen to be released on Monday, May 11. Read more:
From Monday 11 May we are delighted to share with you two short plays written and donated by award-winning playwright and Sherman Theatre Associate Artist Gary Owen. MUM and DAD are performed by two of Wales’s most celebrated actors – Lynn Hunter and Michael Sheen. Together these two plays amount to a beautiful, short theatre experience which can be enjoyed at any time of the day.
Sherman Theatre Artistic Director Joe Murphy has said “The donation of these two plays is an extraordinary, and characteristically generous, gift from Gary Owen. It is so amazing to see the support and community spirit of our artists and audiences in these strange and uncertain times. And that support is vital in allowing us to survive this crisis, and for us to be able to thrive once it’s over. Performed by two exceptional actors, I feel like these small pieces are a real treat and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.”
Gary Owen has said “MUM and DAD are two tiny pieces, near-verbatim records of stories told me by my mum and my dad about their lives growing up in Pembrokeshire. They’re too little to ever be put on as theatre pieces, so it’s a huge treat to have them performed now as part of the Sherman’s lockdown programme. They’re about things that happened before I was born, before my parents ever met. So to me they’re mythical, even though I know they’re real. Lynn and Michael are two actors who never, ever patronise the characters they play, whatever foolish or malicious things those characters might get up to. They make the characters they play real. And in these glorious performances, they turn these little legends back into real life again. I’m incredibly grateful to both of them, and to the Sherman for hosting the pieces.”
Thank you to everyone involved for their generosity and time to make this project happen.
With thanks to Curtis Brown.