LONDON ASSURANCE Begins Previews at Stratford Festival

Slip into a riotous world of Victorian satire as London Assurance takes to the Festival Stage. Directed by Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino, the production is brimming with sexual innuendo, word play and farcical comedy.

It features Geraint Wyn Davies in the lead role of Sir Harcourt Courtly, an over-the-hill London fop. When he embarks on a trip to the countryside to claim a wealthy and scandalously young bride, Grace Harkaway (Marissa Orjalo), his plan for a get-rich-quick weekend is scuttled by his dissolute son, Charles (Austin Eckert), and a cast of eccentrics, including the unforgettable Lady Gay Spanker (Deborah Hay) and her husband, “Dolly” (Michael Spencer-Davis).

Celebrated as one of the great British stage comedies, Dion Boucicault’s London Assurance laid the groundwork for the radical works of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, which would emerge several decades later. It is as funny today as when it first took London and New York audiences by storm in the mid-19thcentury.  

“The play is filled with unbridled joy,” says Cimolino. “The sense of modernity about the piece may surprise audiences, as will the strength of the female characters. Lady Gay Spanker is a marvel: a free-thinking, spirited, joyful and independent woman.”

London Assurance also features David Collins as Max Harkaway, Emilio Vieira as Richard Dazzle, and Rylan Wilkie as Cool, with Graham Abbey as Mark Meddle, Hilary Adams as Pert, Bola Aiyeola, Joella Crichton, Sarah Dodd, Nick Dolan as Seth Soakem, Thomas Duplessie as Martin, Brad Hodder, Jenna-Lee Hyde, Andrew Iles, John Kirkpatrick as James, Tarique Lewis, Jonathan Mason, Glynis Ranney, Antonette Rudder, Vanessa Sears, Mark Uhre and Scott Wentworth as Constable Samuel Squeezer.

The creative team includes Set and Lighting Designer Lorenzo Savoini, Costume Designer Francesca Callow, Composer Wayne Kelso, Sound Designer Ranil Sonnadara, Fight and Intimacy Director Anita Nittoly and Choreographer Adrienne Gould.

London Assurance officially opens on August 22 and runs until October 25 at the Festival Theatre. 

The 2024 season also features Twelfth Night, Something Rotten!, Romeo and Juliet, La Cage aux Folles, Wendy and Peter Pan, Salesman in China, Cymbeline, Hedda Gabler, The Diviners, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? and Get That Hope. For more information, visit stratfordfestival.ca.

This production is dedicated to the memory of senior craftsperson Lisa Hughes, whose incredible creations as a fabric painter and breakdown artist were central to the Festival’s work for 42 seasons.

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