Photo Flash: First Look at Tom Stoppard's TRAVESTIES at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Patrick Marber directs Clare Foster (Cecily), Freddie Fox (Tristan Tzara), Tom Hollander (Henry Carr), Forbes Masson (Lenin), Peter McDonald (James Joyce), Amy Morgan (Gwendolen), Sarah Quist (Nadya) and Tim Wallers (Bennett). The production - which opens on 4 October, with previews from 22 September and runs until 19 November - completely sold out, breaking Menier box office records by becoming the first play to sell out ahead of its opening in the theatre's history.

Tom Stoppard's dazzling comedy of art, love and revolution features James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin as remembered -- and misremembered -- by Henry Carr, a minor British diplomat in Zurich 1917.

When Gwendolen and Cecily wander in from The Importance of Being Earnest, Henry's mind wanders too. He knows he was Algernon in a production in Zurich. But who was the other one?

Travesties opened at the Aldwych Theatre in 1974, directed by Peter Wood. It won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy, and a Tony Award and New York Critic's Circle Award for Best Play for its Broadway run at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.

Tom Stoppard is a playwright and screenwriter, and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He has written prolifically for stage, film, television and radio. His most recent play is The Hard Problem. Other plays include The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Jumpers, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (with André Previn), Dirty Linen, New-Found-Land, Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth , Night and Day, The Real Thing, Hapgood , Arcadia, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia and Rock'n'Roll. His many translations and adaptations include Tango, Undiscovered Country, On the Razzle, Three Men in a Boat, Parade's End and Ivanov. He co-wrote the screenplays for the films Brazil, Shakespeare in Love and The Russia House.

Photo Credit: Johan Persson.

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