Tonight:
5°c
Walliams in the West End for ... (pause) Pinter
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent3 Jul 2008
David Walliams is to make his West End debut alongside Michael Gambon in a new production of a Harold Pinter classic.
The Little Britain star, 36, will play Foster in No Man's Land at the Duke of York's Theatre in the autumn.
The play will be directed by Rupert Goold, who led Patrick Stewart to success in Macbeth and is set to direct the revival of the musical Oliver! later this year.
It will be a heavyweight stage debut for Walliams, who is known for his television and film work.
Although he studied drama at Bristol University, he found fame through the cult sketch show he cowrote with Matt Lucas.
They met while in the National Youth Theatre. Walliams, however, will be in experienced company. Gambon has a long track record in Pinter while the cast is completed by David Bradley, another stage veteran, and Nick Dunning, who appeared in The Tudors television series but is also better known for theatre.
The play is about a successful but alcoholic writer, Hirst, played by Gambon, who meets another, failed, writer, Spooner played by Bradley, on Hampstead Heath.
They return to Hirst's home for late-night drinks and verbal jousting, watched by Hirst's staff, Foster and Briggs.Though more sinister than the work Walliams is used to, the Pinter script is often darkly comic. The play has a star-studded history. It was premiered by the National Theatre at the Old Vic with Peter Hall directing a cast including John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson.
The show is a collaboration with the Gate Theatre in Dublin, where it will premiere in August. It will preview in London from 27 September and run until 3 January.
