Barrie Rutter Artistic Director of Northern Broadsides will be playing King Lear at the Lowry theatre next month alongside a cast of North-West cast.
Rutter’s recent works include Broadsides’ award- winning An August Bank Holiday Lark and last year’s critically acclaimed Rutherford & Son, also directed by Jonathan Miller. This will be the second time that Rutter has played King Lear, the last time being in 1999 for Northern Broadsides.
Joining Rutter on stage are Salford-born Catherine Kinsella from Eccles; graduates from ALRA Drama School in Wigan, Al Bollands and Rikki Hanson-Orr and Josh Moran from Blackpool.
Catherine Kinsella, who will play the role of Cordeila, is from Eccles. Catherine is a familiar face on stages across Manchester appearing in numerous shows at The Lowry, Bolton Octagon and Oldham Coliseum. She won ‘Best Actress in a Visiting Production, for Rutherford and Son, at the Manchester Theatre Awards 2014. Her work for Northern Broadsides also includes the role of Rosaline in Love’s Labours Lost and Charlotte Bronte in We Are Three Sisters. Catherine’s credits for television include Doctors and Waterloo Road both for the BBC, and The Royal on ITV.
Josh Moran, who will play the roles of both Burgandy and the Old Man, is from Lytham St. Annes. Josh also played Burgandy in Northern Broadsides’ 1999 production of King Lear, alongside Barrie Rutter in the title role. His many credits for television include Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Cold Feet and Foyle’s War.
Al Bollands will play the roles of both the ‘knight’ and ‘soldier’. Al trained at Wigan’s ALRA Drama School where he has played the roles of Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cassius in Julius Caesar. Rikki Hanson-Orr, who also trained at ALRA in Wigan and has played the role of Edgar in the drama school’s own production of King Lear, will play the roles of the ‘Knight’ and ‘Messenger’.
The cast also includes Manchester University graduate Nicola Sanderson, whose television credits include the character of Joy Ackroyd in Law and Order and Helen Sheals who played Mrs Wigan in Downton Abbey.
King Lear is the story of a family at war with itself. Lear, an ageing and deeply flawed individual, wrecks his relationship with his three daughters and in doing so, loses all he has. What is there left? This question, which is Lear’s predicament and Shakespeare’s genius, invites us all to think upon what we might gain when nothing is all we have.
The show is directed by Jonathan Miller, who, since launching his early career with Beyond the Fringe, alongside Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett, has become one of the world’s leading opera directors, with myriad credits at English National Opera and Glyndebourne as well as internationally.
His theatre productions include: The Merchant of Venice with Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, The Taming of the Shrew (RSC), The Seagull (Chichester Festival Theatre) and as Artistic Director of the Old Vic (1988 – 1990), Andromache with Janet Suzman and The Tempest with Max von Sydow.
Listings Information
Times: 8pm, Sat 2pm.
Tickets: £19 – £24 (includes £2 booking fee)
To Book: Box Office T: 0843 208 6000, or visit www.thelowry.com
