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National to stage classic Niven film
By Tom Teodorczuk, Evening Standard 15.02.07
David Niven starred as an airman in A Matter Of Life And Death
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A much-loved war film has been adapted into a play to be staged at the National Theatre.
Guys And Dolls actor Douglas Hodge plays the role made famous by David Niven as an airman who appears before a celestial court in Powell and Pressburger's A Matter Of Life And Death.
It is opening at the Olivier in May and is one of the highlights of the new National Theatre season unveiled by National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner today.
Hytner was announcing revivals of Shakespeare, Coward and Harold Pinter plays and new works by Joe Penhall and Simon Stephens.
In his first production since stepping down as Royal Court supremo, Ian Rickson is to team up again with Pinter - who he directed in Krapp's Last Tape - to direct a revival of Pinter's The Hothouse.
A black comedy set in a staterun mental hospital, The Hothouse was written by Pinter in 1958 but first performed in 1980. Another Pinter revival, The Dumb Waiter, starring Lee Evans and Jason Isaacs, is one of the hottest tickets in town.
Another Royal Court stalwart, Penhall is returning to the National for the first time since his Evening Standard Theatre Award-winning play Blue/Orange.
Penhall's military arms satire Landscape With Weapon will open next month, starring Tom Hollander, and is being directed by Roger Michell, best known for his films which include Venus and Notting Hill.
Two acclaimed TV actresses will soon be on stage at the NT. The Kumars At No 42 star Meera Syal will appear in April in wedding comedy Rafta, Rafta by East Is East playwright Ayub Khan-Din.
Anne-Marie Duff, best known for Shameless and Elizabeth, will portray Joan of Arc in a revival of Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan in July, to be directed by Marianne Elliott, current holder of the Evening Standard Theatre award for best director. Elliott will also direct a new Stephens play, Harper Regan, for the NT.
Hytner's policy of giving classic plays a 21st-century setting brings a revival of Maxim Gorky's Philistines.
Opening in May, Philistines which the National describes as being about "a restless bunch of young radicals who have sex, drink, moan and philosophise," will star Rory Kinnear, currently bringing the house down in The Man Of The Mode.
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