Mathew Horne and Ed Speleers to Star in RAIN MAN By Dan Gordon

Bill Kenwright presents the inaugural Classic Screen to Stage Theatre Company production of RAIN MAN. Mathew Horne (Gavin & Stacey, The Catherine Tate Show) stars as Raymond Babbit opposite Ed Speleers (Downton Abbey, Wolf Hall) as Charlie Babbit. RAIN MAN opens at Windsor Theatre Royal on 21 August, before embarking on a UK tour to Milton Keynes, Cardiff, Eastbourne, Southend, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Brighton, Guildford, Leeds, Richmond, Derby and Northampton. Further dates and casting to be announced in due course.

Mathew Horne is best known for playing Gavin in the much-loved, double BAFTA winning comedy series Gavin and Stacey, as well as the BBC series The Catherine Tate Show, and Jack Whitehall's Bad Education. His most recent West End stage credit was The Miser opposite Griff Rhys Jones and Lee Mack. Ed Speleers starred as Jimmy Kent in the Golden Globe award winning series Downton Abbey. His breakthrough came after landing the lead role in the fantasy blockbuster Eragon, since then he has starred in many films and TV series and has just been announced as joining the cast of Outlander.

When self-centered salesman Charlie Babbitt discovers that his long-lost brother

Raymond, an autistic savant with a genius for numbers, has inherited the family fortune; he sets out to get 'his half'.

Charlie 'borrows' Raymond from the institution where he has spent most of his life and the two brothers embark on a trip across America where Charlie soon discovers that Raymond is worth more than he could have ever imagined...

Inspired by the heart-warming Oscar-winning film, which famously starred Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman and won Oscar's for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Actor, Rain Man follows previous acclaimed Bill Kenwright productions of films to the stage such as A Few Good Men, The Shawshank Redemption and Twelve Angry Men.

The production will be directed by Jonathan O'Boyle whose credits include Rasheeda Speaking (Trafalgar Studios), This House (UK Tour); Pippin (Hope Mill Theatre/Southwark Playhouse); and Hair (Hope Mill Theatre/The Vaults) winner of the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Off West End Production.

Mathew Horne's stage credits include The Miser (Garrick Theatre), The Catherine Tate Show Live (UK Tour), The Pride (Trafalgar Studios), Charley's Aunt (Menier Chocolate Factory), Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Trafalgar Studios) and Blue Remembered Hills (Courtyard Theatre).

Mathew's screen credits include Are You Being Served? (BBC), Agatha Raisin (Mammoth Screen for Sky), Bad Education (Tigers Aspect), Drunk History (Tiger Aspect), Nan (Tiger Aspect), Sky Arts Presents: Hey Diddly Dee (Sky), Death in Paradise (Red Planet Pictures), Sinbad (Sky1), Sounds of the Cities (Nemo Entertainment), Way to Go (BBC), The Proposal (Baby Cow Productions), Worried About The Boy (Red Production Company), Gavin and Stacey (BBC), Miss Marple (ITV), Nan's Christmas Carol (Tiger Aspect), Billy Goats Gruff (Hat Trick), Robin Hood (Tiger Aspect), Roman's Empire (Tiger Aspect), The Catherine Tate Show (Tiger Aspect), Losing It (ITV), Teachers (Tiger Aspect), Doc Martin (Buffalo Pictures), Carrie and Barrie (Hartswood Films), The Smoking Room (BBC), 20 Things To Do Before You're 30 (Tiger Aspect), Being April (BBC), Cancun (BBC), Reputations (BBC), A-Z of Politics (BBC), Noble and Silver (Channel 4), Outlaws (BBC), Bad Education (Cavebear Productions), Breaking The Bank (BTB Productions), Horrid Henry (Vertigo Films), Planet 51 (Lion Animation), Lesbian Vampire Killers (Momentum Pictures), Our Hidden Lives (Davey) and Vanity Fair (VF Films).

Ed Speleers's screen credits include Outlander (Starz), Wolf Hall (BBC), Downton Abbey (ITV), Beowulf (ITV), Zoo (Logical Pictures), Breathe (Participant Media), House That Jack Built (Zentropa), Through The Looking Glass (Disney), Partners in Crime (BBC), Eragon (Twentieth Century Fox), A Lonely Place to Die (Carnaby Films), Plastic (Gateway Films) and Love Bite (West End Films).

Ed will be making his stage debut in Rain Man.

Jonathan O'Boyle trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and Birkbeck, University of London. He was previously Trainee Associate Director at Chichester Festival Theatre and Associate Director at Theatre503.

Future projects include: Peter Pan (Park Theatre); Aspects of Love (Hope Mill Theatre).

Credits include: Rasheeda Speaking (Trafalgar Studios); This House (UK Tour Director for Headlong Theatre); Pippin (Hope Mill Theatre/Southwark Playhouse. 11 Off-West End Award nominations); Dear Brutus (Southwark Playhouse); Hair (Hope Mill Theatre/The Vaults. WhatsOnStage Award for Best Off West End Production); Four Play, Sense of an Ending, Water Under the Board (Theatre503); Bash Latterday Plays (Trafalgar Studios/Old Red Lion); The Surplus, All The Ways To Say Goodbye (Young Vic); The Verb, 'To Love', Made in Britain (Old Red Lion); Broken Glass (Central School of Speech and Drama); Last Online Today, Guinea Pigs (Crucible New Writers' Project, Sheffield Crucible Studio); The Monster Bride (Tristan Bates Theatre).

Associate Director Credits include: An American in Paris (Dominion Theatre); This House (Chichester Festival Theatre/Garrick Theatre); The Judas Kiss (Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto/Brooklyn Academy Of Music); Mack and Mabel (Chichester Festival Theatre/UK Tour); Bull (Young Vic); This Is My Family (Sheffield Lyceum/UK Tour). Assistant Director credits include: The Scottsboro Boys (Young Vic).

Jonathan was selected as one of the Guardian's Rising Stage Stars of 2014.

Bill Kenwright's recent West End productions include The Best Man (Playhouse); The Exorcist (Phoenix); Evita (Phoenix and Dominion); How the Other Half Loves (Haymarket); Michael Crawford in The Go-Between (Apollo); The War of the Worlds (Dominion); Let the Right One In (Apollo); Twelve Angry Men (Garrick); Will Young in Cabaret (Savoy); Blood Brothers (Phoenix); Dreamboats and Petticoats (Wyndhams); Soul Sister (Savoy); Written on the Heart (RSC - Duchess); The Pitmen Painters (Duchess); The Wizard of Oz (Palladium); On the Waterfront (Haymarket); Sunset Boulevard (Comedy); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Adelphi and New London); The Crucible (RSC - Gielgud); Whistle Down the Wind (Palace); A Man for All Seasons (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Scrooge (Palladium); Rob Lowe in A Few Good Men (Haymarket); Festen (Lyric); Judi Dench in All's Well That Ends Well (RSC - Gielgud) and Hay Fever (Haymarket); Jessica Lange in A Streetcar Named Desire (Haymarket); Long Day's Journey into Night (Lyric); The Glass Menagerie (Apollo); The Taming of the Shrew (RSC - Queens); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Lyric); Fallen Angels (Apollo); Brief Encounter (Lyric); the Peter Hall company.

On Broadway; Travels With My Aunt (Drama Desk Award); Dancing At Lughnasa (Tony Award); Medea (Tony Award); Ibsen's A Doll's House (four Tony Awards); Théâtre de Complicite's The Chairs (six Tony nominations); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, Primo, Festen, Passing Strange and Guys and Dolls. Blood Brothers, which ran for 24 years in the West End, also played for three years at Broadway's Music Box Theatre.

As a Director Cilla the Musical, Evita, Whistle Down the Wind, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Blood Brothers. He was nominated for a London Theatre Critics' Award for West Side Story and a Tony Award for Blood Brothers.

His films include: Another Mother's Son, My Pure Land (Britain's submission for the Foreign-Language Oscar), The Hope Rooms, The Day After the Fair, Stepping Out, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Cheri and Broken, which won Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards. Burden, starring Garrett Hedlund, Andrea Riseborough and Forest Whitaker, will feature at the 2018 Sundance festival.

He co-produced the phenomenally successful arena tour of Elvis - The Concert with Elvis Presley Enterprises.

Awards include an Honorary Doctorate from both Liverpool University and Nottingham Trent University, an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool's John Moores University and an Honorary Professorship from Thames Valley University in London. In 2002, he received the Variety Club Bernard Delfont Award for his contribution to the entertainment industry, and in the same year his CBE. In 2008, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Theatrical Management Association. In 2017, to celebrate his illustrious career in show business, he was honoured by BBC Radio 2 with a special episode of Friday Night is Music Night which was broadcast from the London Palladium.

Bill Kenwright is the Chairman of English Premier League Football Club, Everton. And a fan.

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