If you’ve ever wanted to see David Tennant tread the boards, here’s your chance.
Tennant, known to fans across the globe as Doctor Who‘s Tenth Doctor, will portray William Shakespeare’s titular second monarch, Richard II, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) upcoming production of Richard II.
That alone is enough to warrant an “Allons-y!”
Even more brilliant is that this staging of Richard II by RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran will be the first broadcast of “Live from Stratford-upon-Avon,” a collaborative program between the RSC and Picturehouse Entertainment that screens the RSC’s productions from Shakespeare’s hometown to audiences around the world.
Richard II — the first of Shakespeare’s four plays about the House of Lancaster — opens at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on 10 October 2013, and the 13 November performance will be simultaneously filmed and broadcast live to more than 100 cinemas across the UK.
(I’ll be there and going to the screening. Yay!)
(Update: The RST had a couple of retuned tickets, so I got to see the show live!)
Audiences in the US will be able to see the performance at limited screenings from 3 December 2013 through 2 January 2014. For a current list of participating venues, visit the RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon website.
Screening dates for audiences in Canada, Australia, Northern Europe, and Japan will be announced soon.
Joining David Tennant in the Company for Richard II are Oliver Ford Davies (Star Wars: Episodes I-III, Kavanagh QC) as the Duke of York, Michael Pennington (The Iron Lady, Star Wars: Episode VI) as John of Gaunt, and Nigel Lindsay (Clatterford, Rome) as Bolingbroke.
(For an overview of the play, see the RSC website’s Richard II synopsis page.)
Although the production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is sold out, there are still tickets available for performances at the Barbican Theatre in London, which run from 9 December 2013 through 25 January 2014.
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