Casting Announced for Finborough Theatre's 150th Anniversary Play CYRIL'S SUCCESS

During 2018, the Finborough Theatre celebrates 150 years of the Finborough Theatre building with an anniversary selection of the best plays from 1868. The FINBOROUGH150 series opens with the first London production since 1890 of Cyril's Success by playwright and local resident Henry J. Byron playing for nine Sunday and Monday evenings and Tuesday matinees from Sunday, 4 February 2018 (Press Night: Monday, 5 February 2018 at 7.30pm).

London, 1868. Young playwright Cyril Cuthbert is at the beginning of what promises to be a triumphant career. Eagerly pursued by theatre managers, critics and star actors, and lovingly supported by his wife, Cyril is happier than ever.

But as his career takes off, his newly-won fame takes a toll on his marriage until Mrs Cuthbert discovers proof that Cyril's attention and heart have wandered...

First staged in November 1868 in London, and the following year in the United States, and filled with pungent - and still very apposite - satire of critics, writers, actors and theatre folk, Cyril's Success was one of Henry J. Byron's biggest successes - a semi-autobiographical romantic comedy about the trials and joys of marriage and of a life in the theatre.

Playwright Henry James Byron (1835-1884) was a prolific playwright, producing over 150 dramatic works, as well as being an editor, journalist, actor, theatre manager and director. Among his many successful plays was Our Boys (1875) which broke the records for London's longest-running play with 1,362 performances of the original production. He is possibly best remembered today for his work in pantomime where he created the character of Widow Twankey in Aladdin, or, The Wonderful Scamp (1861), and adding both the Ugly Sisters and Buttons to Cinderella (1860). He was the editor of Fun magazine (1861), showcasing the talents of the young W. S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, close to the Finborough Theatre.

Director Hannah Boland Moore returns to the Finborough Theatre where she directed Veterans Day in 2017. Direction includes The Provoked Wife (White Bear Theatre, and transfer to the Hope Theatre), The One (Lion and Unicorn Theatre), The Broken Circle Breakdown (Karamel Club), Confetti (LOST Theatre) and As You Like It (Royal Shakespeare Company Open Stages). Assistant Direction includes the Olivier Award nominated It Is Easy To Be Dead (Finborough Theatre and Trafalgar Studios) and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Greenwich Theatre). Hannah has also worked as Text Assistant to the Master of Words at Shakespeare's Globe on The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Richard II and Measure for Measure. Hannah trained Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

FINBOROUGH150. 2018 marks 150 years of the Finborough Theatre building, originally designed by prominent Victorian architect George Godwin. We will be celebrating our birthday throughout the year with an anniversary selection of the best plays from 1868. #finborough150

The cast is:

Tim Gibson | Cyril Cuthbert
Trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
Theatre includes A Woman of No Importance (Vaudeville Theatre), The Provoked Wife (Hope Theatre and White Bear Theatre), The Importance of Being Earnest (Italy Tour), Richard III (National Tour) Homo- (Rosemary Branch Theatre), Pygmalion (English Theatre, Vienna), Night Without Luz (Festival Off, Avignon), Letters from Everyone (Drayton Arms Theatre), Another Country, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Mephisto (Oxford Playhouse) and Swan Song (Edinburgh Festival). Theatre whilst training includes As You Like It, Earthquakes in London, The House of Blue Leaves and Cock.
Film includes Note, Ways of Seeing and I Love London.

Lewis Hart | Titeboy
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Cornelius.
Theatre includes Dunsinane (Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre of Scotland), Hedda Gabler and Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh,and Dundee Repertory Theatre), This Much (Soho Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors and Pocket Dream (Propeller Theatre Company), Longshore Drift (Old Vic New Voices), The Enlightenment Café (Old Vic Tunnels), Life Support (York Theatre Royal), Miller (Etcetera Theatre), The Cage and Turning to the Camera (Edinburgh Festival).

Will Kelly | Major Treherne
Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Theatre includes A Woman of No Importance (Vaudeville Theatre), The Provoked Wife (Hope Theatre and White Bear Theatre), Hansel and Gretel (St Paul's Church, Covent Garden), Romeo and Juliet (Young Shakespeare Company), King Lear (Bristol Old Vic), The Trojan Women and The Madame Macadam Travelling Theatre (Bristol Old Vic Studio), The Ugly One (Alma Tavern, Bristol) and The Babysitter (Pleasance Edinburgh). Theatre whilst training includes As You Like It, The Country Wife, Ladybird, Posh, Separate Tables, Our Country's Good, Capital, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Pornography and The Shape of Things.

Allegra Marland | Mrs Bliss
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include After October.
Trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
Theatre includes Romeo and Juliet (Union Theatre), Wine Over Clementine (Cockpit Theatre) and Love's Labour's Lost (Neuss Globe Theatre).
Film includes Goodbye Christopher Robin and Sunday Tide.
Television includes Father Brown.

Isabella Marshall | Mrs Cuthbert
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Caste.
Trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Theatre includes Woyzeck (The Old Vic), Hamlet and All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, Bristol and Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham), Cinderella: A Fairytale (The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, and Travelling Light), Peter Pan, Dancing at Lughnasa, She Stoops to Conquer, An Inspector Calls and Vincent in Brixton (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick) and Flowers of the Field (White Bear Theatre).
Television includes Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators and Grantchester.
Radio includes The Real George Orwell.
Short film includes La Entrevista and Amygdala.

Stephen Rashbrook | Mr Pincher
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include After October.
Theatre includes Waste, Luther, The Winter's Tale, Hamlet and Certain Young Men (National Theatre), The Lady in the Van and Jackie (Queen's Theatre), Talk of the Devil (Bristol Old Vic), Forty Years On and Robert and Elizabeth (Chichester Festival Theatre), Nicholas Nickleby, Peter Pan, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Othello, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night (Royal Shakespeare Company), Knots and Bumps (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Hamlet (Donmar Warehouse), A Private Treason (Palace Theatre, Watford), As You Like It (Greenwich Theatre), A Fool and His Money (Nottingham Playhouse and Birmingham Rep), Sweeney Todd and The Remains of the Day (Union Theatre), The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing (US Tour), The Sound of Music (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry), The Rat Pack: Live from Las Vegas (US Tour and West End),The Rat Pack Christmas Show (Scandinavian Tour and West End) and Who Killed Agatha Christie (National Tour).
Television includes The Royals, Hollyoaks, Holby City, Doctors, My Dad's the Prime Minister, Frost, New Tricks, Powers, Urban Gothic, Look and Read, Emmerdale and over five hundred documentaries as narrator.

Susan Tracy | Miss Grannet
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Variation on a Theme and Dream of a Perfect Sleep.
Theatre includes The Wars of the Roses (Rose Theatre, Kingston), A Day by the Sea (Southwark Playhouse), Nijinsky, The Deep Blue Sea and Playhouse Creatures (Chichester Festival Theatre), Three Sisters for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award, Anna Christie for which she was also nominated for an Olivier Award, The Relapse, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Othello (Royal Shakespeare Company), Much Ado About Nothing (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), Long Day's Journey into Night (Cambridge Theatre Company), The Old Wives Tale (New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme), Denial (Bristol Old Vic), Anything Goes (National Theatre and Theatre Royal Drury Lane), A Passage to India (Shared Experience, National Tour and BAM Harvey Theater, New York City), Richard II and Inherit the Wind (The Old Vic) and A Chorus of Disapproval (Harold Pinter Theatre).
Film includes The Death and Life of John F Donovan.
Television includes The Trial, Midsomer Murders, Casualty, Doctors, The Stars Look Down, Born and Bred, Inspector Lewis, The Diary of Anne Frank and Poirot.

Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
No booking fees on online, personal or postal bookings
By Telephone -
Until 29 January 2018 - Box Office 0844 847 1652 (Calls will cost 7ppm plus your network access charge.)
From 30 January 2018 - Box Office 01223 357851. (Calls are free. There will be a 5% booking fee.) Lines are open Monday- Saturday 10.00am-6.00pm
Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20 February 2018
Sunday and Monday evenings at 7.30pm. Tuesday matinees at 2.00pm.
Tickets £18, £16 concessions.
Performance Length: Approximately two hours including one interval of fifteen minutes.

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