Tickets are selling briskly ahead of a tantalising double bill for Theatre Severn: a national treasure is appearing in one of the country’s best-loved plays. Film, theatre and TV star Shane Richie will play Archie Rice in a production of John Osborne’s ‘The Entertainer’. Named by theatre critic Michael Billington as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, the play comes to Shrewsbury from Monday 18 to Saturday 23 November. For the first time since its premiere in 1957, Osborne’s classic is given a vibrant new setting and an electric new vision in Sean O’Connor’s startling new production.
It’s 1982: Archie Rice is a washed-up entertainer playing a summer season. As his soldier son sails to the Falklands, his daughter Jean returns from campaigning against the war, and Archie’s professional and personal lives collide with devastating consequences.
Shane says, “Following in the black patent shoes of Olivier, Gambon, Lindsay and Branagh, it’s an incredible honour to be asked to play one of literatures greatest fictional characters, Archie Rice. In the words of the great man himself ‘you’re a long time dead, let’s just whoop it up!’
Tickets can be booked online at theatresevern.co.uk, by calling 01743 281281 and from the Box Office.
