Tom Bateman and Lucy Briggs-Owen to Star in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE Stage Adaptation, Begins Today

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is coming to the stage and has found its leading players.

According to the Daily Mail, Tom Bateman will star as William Shakespeare opposite Lucy Briggs-Owen as Viola de Lesseps in the upcoming West End adaptation by Lee Hall. Declan Donnellan directs. The production will begin performances today, July 2, at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Based on the Oscar-winning 1998 film, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes, the play "will not be a scene-by-scene replica of the movie" but "a double love story, focusing on the romance between Shakespeare and Viola, and also how theatre-obsessed Londoners were in the Elizabethan era."

Read the original report here.

The film version of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard and helmed by John Madden, nearly swept the 1999 Academy Awards, winning for Best Picture, Best Actress (Paltrow) and Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), Best Screenplay and three others.

The movie tells the tale of Will Shakespeare, young and suffering from a bad case of writer's block, who meets Viola de Lesseps, a young woman with aspirations to act onstage in an era when only men trod the boards. The pair begin a torrid love affair, which inspires Shakespeare to finish writing his famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet.

Bateman has appeared in the TV series Da Vinci's Demons, Unforgettable and The Tunnel. He will next be seen on the big screen in Creditors.

Briggs-Owen has appeared onstage in the RSC's Cardenio, The City Madam and A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has also appeared in the West End in Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Importance of Being Earnest at Regents Park, Private Lives at Hampstead, Troilus and Cressida at the Barbican and on tour, and more. Her TV credits include Midsomer Murders.

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