The Stage

Wanamaker to star in Much Ado About Nothing

Published Thursday 15 February 2007 at 17:20 by Alistair Smith

Nicholas Hytner will direct Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale in Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing this December at the National Theatre.

The announcement comes as the NT’s artistic director revealed a number of plans for the forthcoming season and beyond. These include Philistines by Maxim Gorky, in a new version by Andrew Upton, directed by Howard Davies, Ian Rickson directing Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse and Alex Jennings performing in a revival of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter, also directed by Davies.

Hytner also confirmed that, as revealed in The Stage, Marianne Elliott will direct Anne-Marie Duff in Saint Joan, while in November Katie Mitchell will direct Euripides’ The Women of Troy.

Meanwhile, further ahead, the NT have in development an as yet untitled project which is to be directed and performed by choreographer Akram Khan and actress Juliette Binoche, while Ralph Fiennes will star in Oedipus the King, directed by Jonathan Kent.

This coming season will also feature Landscape with Weapon - a new play by Joe Penhall, Rafta, Rafta… by Ayub Khan-Din and directed by Hytner, A Matter of Life and Death, based on the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and adapted by Tom Morris and Emma Rice. Meanwhile, Elliott will direct War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, and building on the NT’s strand of work for young audiences.