The Stage

Globe casts all-women Much Ado About Nothing

Published Wednesday 7 April 2004 at 10:50 by Sally Bramley

Comedienne Josie Lawrence is to make her Globe debut this season in an all-female production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Lawrence will star as Benedict in the South Bank production, with Yolanda Vasquez returning from last season to play Beatrice. Tamara Harvey will direct. This is not the first time Lawrence has starred in the Shakespearean play. She appeared in Much Ado About Nothing at the Royal Exchange in 1997. She also played Kate in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Taming of the Shrew in 1996.

The production is one of three plays in the theatre’s Star-Crossed Lovers season, which opens on May 7 and also includes mixed productions of Romeo and Juliet and Measure for Measure. Artistic director Mark Rylance, who is playing Vincentio in Measure for Measure, said he was looking forward to welcoming back the women’s company, as well as the newcomers Lawrence and Hannah Barrie. Tom Burke and Kananu Kirimi will star as Romeo and Juliet, with Globe stalwart John McEnery starring as Friar Lawrence. Full casting for all the productions will be announced in due course.

• Sheffield Theatres’ production of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer is to transfer to the Albery Theatre from May 6 for a limited ten week season. Directed by Sheffield Theatres’ associate director Michael Grandage, the cast includes Diana Rigg, Victoria Hamilton and Mark Bazeley, with design by Christopher Oram.

• Former EastEnders star Alex Ferns is returning to the West End this month in the European premiere of Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence. The production, which will also star Ben Cross, is set on Death Row in an American jail and revolves around two prisoners - the editor of the prison newspaper and the racist perpetrator of a horrific mass murder. The show will open at the Duchess Theatre on April 28. Cross and Fearns last starred together two years ago in Art.

• The Young Vic has announced the casting for its joint production with Wiener Festwochen and Chichester Festival Theatre of Cruel and Tender. Kerry Fox leads the cast as Amelia in Martin Crimp’s modern twist on the ancient Sophocles story, Trachiniae, about marriage and violence. The show will be directed by Luc Bondy and is due to open at the Young Vic on May 13.

• Claire Bloom is to star as Florence Nightingale and Kathryn Hunter as Dr James Barry - the Victorian army surgeon revealed after death to be a woman - in the world premiere of Whistling Psyche, at the Almeida in May. Directed by Robert Delamere, the show is written by Dubliner Sebastian Barry, whose other work includes the award-winning The Steward of Christendom and Hinterland, which ran at the National Theatre in 2002. The show opens on May 7 and runs until June 12.

• The Society of London Theatre has launched Kids Week 2004. The annual fortnight-long event where children can go and see a show for free, as well as go backstage and meet the stars, will run from August 20 to September 3. Booking lines will open at the start of the summer holidays. For more details about Kids Week go to www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/kids/week.