THE LAST CIGARETTE Moves To The West End 4/21-8/1

Richard Eyre's production of The Last Cigarette, adapted by Hugh Whitemore and Simon Gray from Gray's critically acclaimed The Smoking Diaries, is to transfer to the West End having previously opened the 2009 Season at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Starring Felicity Kendal, Nicholas le Prevost and Jasper Britton, who all perform as Simon Gray, The Last Cigarette will run at Trafalgar Studios from 21 April - 1 August, with opening night 28 April 2009. Designs are by Rob Howell with lighting and projection by John Driscoll and music by George Fenton.

Sardonic, humane, intelligent and often outrageously funny, this stage version of The Last Cigarette was completed just before Gray's death last summer and draws on his many volumes of memoirs, including Fat Chance, Enter a Fox, The Smoking Diaries and Coda. Having faced life - and death - with unflinching courage and defiant humanity, even when writing about his own mortality, Gray lost none of his prodigious talent to entertain. Simon Gray's plays include Butley, Otherwise Engaged, Quatermaine's Terms, Hidden Laughter and The Common Pursuit.

Award-winning actor Felicity Kendal's numerous theatre credits include Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia and Indian Ink and David Hare's Amy's View, as well as Humble Boy at the Gielgud Theatre, Hidden Laughter at the Vaudeville Theatre and Tartuffe at The Playhouse Theatre. Most recently Kendal was seen in Noël Coward's The Vortex at the Apollo Theatre, directed by Peter Hall. Her many television credits include Solo, The Mistress, Edward VII, Rosemary and Thyme as well as Barbara Good in the BBC's hugely popular The Good Life. Last year she was seen in Doctor Who playing opposite David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Kendal was made a CBC in 1995 and in 1998 Kendal publishEd White Cargo: A Memoir.

Nicholas Le Prevost's theatre credits include the title role in Uncle Vanya directed by Peter Hall at the Rose Theatre, Uncle Willy in The Philadelphia Story for the Old Vic, The Wild Duck for the Donmar Warehouse, Einstein in Insignificance for Sheffield Theatres, Blood for The Royal Court Theatre, Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady for The National Theatre and in the West End and Pontignac in An Absolute Turkey at the Gielguid Theatre. Le Prevost is a founder member and director of The Wrestling School, a company formed to produce the works of playwright Howard Barker. His numerous television credits include Margaret, Mary Whitehouse, Midsomer Murders, My Dad's the Prime Minister, Silent Witness, The Vicar of Dibley and Poirot. His film credits include Bright Young Things, Land Girls, Shakespeare in Love and Clockwise.

Jasper Britton has worked extensively with The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and at Shakespeare's Globe. He has also appeared in Simon Gray's Japes and Becket both at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce at the Aldwych Theatre. His most recent productions include Fram and Oedipus for The National Theatre, Private Lives for Hampstead Theatre and the part of John Gielgud in Nicholas de Jongh's Plague Over England at the Finborough Theatre. His television credits include Nostrodamus, My Dad's the Prime Minister, Murder in Mind, Highlander and Ever Decreasing Circles. His film credits include A Life with Bells On, Blackbeard and The New World.

Richard Eyre was Artistic Director of The National Theatre between1987 and 1997 where he directed many award-winning productions and numerous plays by David Hare and Tom Stoppard. His more recent credits include Hedda Gabler for The Almeida Theatre and Mary Poppins both in the West End and on Broadway. His films include Iris, Notes on a Scandal and Stage Beauty. For the BBC he wrote and presented Changing Stages, a six-part look at twentieth Century Theatre. Eyre has published three books, including National Service, a journal of his time at The National Theatre. He has received five Olivier Awards, four Evening Standard Awards, three Critics Circle Awards and a BAFTA and was knighted in 1997.

Hugh Whitemore's plays include Stevie, Pack of Lies, Breaking the Code, A Letter of Resignation and, most recently, an adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Bob Hoskins for The Playhouse. His film and television scripts include the Emmy award-winning The Gathering Storm.

Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY

Dates: 21 April - 1 August 2009

 

Performances: Monday - Saturday at 7.30pm

Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm

 

Box Office: 0870 060 6632

Groups bookings 0870 060 6644

Tickets £45.00, £40.00, £35.00, £25.00

Group Rates: £25.00 for groups of 8+ (Monday to Thursday evenings and Thursday matinees)

School Rates: £17.50 for groups of 10+ with 1 free ticket for a teacher per group of 10 (Monday to Thursday evenings and Thursday matinees)

Senior Rates: £27.50 for Monday evenings and both matinees if booked in advance and £27.50 from 1 hour before for Tuesday to Thursday evenings

Website: www.ambassadortickets.com/trafalgarstudios

 

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