Trevor Nunn Helms Alan Ayckbourn's A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL in The West End; Nigel Harman et al. Lead

Trevor Nunn is to direct a cast including Rob Brydon, Nigel Harman and Ashley Jensen in Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval opening at the Harold Pinter Theatre later this year. Joining the trio on stage will be Teresa Banham, Daisy Beaumont, Georgia Brown, Rob Compton, Matthew Cottle and Steven Edis, who is also the show's Musical Director. The production is booking from September 17, 2012 – January 5, 2013, with an opening night scheduled for September 27, 2012. 

Further casting will be announced shortly.

Tickets go on sale today, June 28, 2012. Designs are by Rob Jones, with lighting by Tim Mitchell and sound by Fergus O'Hare. A Chorus of Disapproval is produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.

This production continues Sonia Friedman's collaboration with Ayckbourn, having previously presented his Absent Friends at the Harold Pinter Theatre and his The Norman Conquests on Broadway. As with all SFP productions there will be a range of accessible seat prices, which will include over one hundred £10 seats for every performance, many bookable in advance.

In A Chorus of Disapproval, The Pendon Amateur Light Operatic Society's production of The Beggar's Opera is going off the rails, that is until a handsome but shy young widower Guy (Harman) joins the group. An instant hit with the company's ferociously zealous director Dafydd (Brydon) and the show's leading ladies, including Dafydd's wife Hannah (Jensen), Guy soon gets more than he bargained for as he discovers that all the best action happens off-stage. Classic songs fill the air as the drama on stage is mirrored by the romantic rivalry and small town squabbles causing a stir in the wings of this ambitious local show.

The world premiere of A Chorus of Disapproval was directed by Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 1984 with a cast including Lenox Greaves, Russell Dixon and Alwyne Taylor. The London premiere at The National Theatre in 1985, also directed by Ayckbourn, starred Bob Peck, Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton. The production then transferred to the West End the following year.

For tickets and more information, visit www.achorusofdisapproval.com.

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Rob Brydon (Dafydd ap Llewellyn), who is making his West End acting debut in A Chorus of Disapproval, studied at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama before joining BBC Wales as a radio and television presenter. He first came to the public's attention in 2000 with the television shows Marion and Geoff and Human Remains, winning British Comedy Awards for both. Since then his extensive comedy credits have included I'm Alan Partridge, Little Britain, Live at the Apollo, Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, QI, Have I Got News For You, Gavin and Stacey, for which he was BAFTA nominated, Rob Brydon's Identity Crisis, The Trip and Would I Lie To You?. His television acting credits include Oliver Twist, Heroes and Villains: Napoleon, Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore and Marple and his self-titled, BAFTA nominated TV chat show which is currently in its third series on BBC2. On film he has been seen in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 24 Hour Party People, MirrorMask, A Cock and Bull Story and the big screen version of The Trip. Brydon has worked extensively on the radio with appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and on April Fool's Day in 2011 he hosted Radio 2's Ken Bruce Show in character as Ken Bruce for the whole show. In 2009, he completed an eighty-seven date tour of the UK with his stand-up show, Rob Brydon Live, which included a three-week run in London's West End. He returned to the stage in the Autumn of 2011 alongside Kenneth Branagh in The Painkiller at The Lyric in Belfast. Also in 2011 Brydon released his autobiography, titled Small Man in a Book which he made into a nationwide tour. He will star in the BBC Paralympic drama Best of Men alongside Eddie Marsan which will air mid August ahead of the Paralympic Games. The 90-minute feature tells the story of Dr Ludwig Guttmann, a German doctor whose use of sport to treat patients in the 1940s led to the birth of the Paralympics.

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