Gaddafi opera put back six months

Published Tuesday 31 May 2005 at 15:40 by Nuala Calvi

English National Opera has delayed by six months Gaddafi, the opera written by Asian Dub Foundation’s Steve Chandra Savale and based on the life of the Libyan leader.

The co-commission by ENO and Channel 4 was originally scheduled to be part of the forthcoming Sky and Artsworld Season but the date move gives the company an extra six months to produce it. The production will now open ENO’s 2006/7 season.

Announcing the decision, ENO artistic director Sean Doran said: “Too often contemporary opera reaches the stage prematurely. Our number one priority is to get this right first time.”

Chandra Savale, who has not yet completed the music for Gaddafi, said he was pleased with the move.

• Actress and writer Meera Syal will appear at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, along with Nina Wadia and Shobna Gulati, who plays Sunita in Coronation Street.

The actresses are headlining Britasia!, a series of shows and events celebrating British Asian talent, running from June 21 to July 2.

Wadia and Gulati will take part in an improvisational comedy show and Syal will be part of a panel debating British Asian Identity and the Arts.

•Veteran director William Gaskill is coming out of retirement to direct a show at the Arcola Theatre in July, in what will be his first professional directing project for ten years.

Gaskill, who was a founding director of the National Theatre alongside Laurence Olivier, will oversee Carver, an adaptation of five short stories by American writer Raymond Carver.

He was convinced to take up the project by one of his former RADA students, Philip Arditti, who worked with him on a similar show two years ago at the drama school. Arditti is now producing Carver, which will star Kathryn Pogson, Bruce Alexander and Jack Klaff.

Gaskill was the artistic director of the Royal Court between 1965 and 1972 and formed theatre group Joint Stock with Max Stafford Clark.

• Desmond Barrit has been cast in the lead role of Hector in The History Boys for the show’s UK tour. Barrit, who takes over the part played by Richard Griffiths, previously starred in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Stuff Happens. Alan Bennett’s play, which premiered at the National, will tour the country for eight weeks.