REVIEW: Network, Lyttelton, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭
Paul T Davies reviews Lee Hall’s adaptation of Network starring Bryan Cranston, Douglas Henshall and Michelle Dockery at the National Theatre.
Michelle Dockery
Douglas Henshall joins Bryan Cranston and Michelle Dockery in Network
The National Theatre have announced that Douglas Henshall will play Max Schumacher in the world premiere of Network – Lee Hall’s new adaptation of the Oscar-winning film by Paddy Chayefsky. Henshall joins Tony Award winner Bryan Cranston as Howard Beale and Michelle Dockery as Diana Christenson. Network will be directed by Ivo Van Hove. Howard Beale, news anchor-man, isn’t pulling in the viewers. In his final broadcast he unravels live on screen. But when the ratings soar, the network seizes on their new found populist prophet, and Howard becomes the biggest thing on TV. Network depicts a dystopian media landscape where opinion trumps fact. Hilarious and horrifying by turns, the iconic film by Paddy Chayefsky won four Academy Awards in 1976. Network will have set and lighting design by Jan Versweyveld, video design by Tal Yarden, costume design by An D’Huys, music and sound design by Eric Sleichim. A very … Read more
Autumn Donmar Warehouse Season Announced
Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Josie Rourke today announced the theatre’s Autumn season of three plays which includes Abi Morgan’s Splendour directed by Associate Director Robert Hastie, the UK Premiere of Christopher Shinn’s Teddy Ferrara directed by Dominic Cooke and the thirty-year revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton directed by Rourke herself. Artistic Director Josie Rourke said: One of the things that most excites me about this season is the strong leading roles for women. It is a thrill to announce a season of work that features, in plays by living writers, women of the calibre and power of Zawe Ashton, Sinéad Cusack, Michelle Dockery, Michelle Fairley, Genevive O’Reilly and Janet McTeer, who returns to the Donmar and the London stage. This, combined with the transfer of Phyllida Lloyd’s second instalment in her trilogy of all-female Shakespeares to New York shows a programme of work in deep conversation with … Read more
