The cast has been announced for the eagerly awaited ATC and Arcola Theatre production Ibsen's Ghosts. The new version of the classic subtitled Those Who Return, translated by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (An Enemy of The People, Her Naked Skin) and directed by ATC Artistic Director Bijan Sheibani (The Brothers Size, Gone Too Far!) will star Harry Lloyd as Osvald, Suzanne Burden as Mrs Alving, Paul Hickey as Pastor Manders, Natasha Broomfield as Regine and Jim Bywater as Engstrand. The production also brings together the producers of the award winning The Brothers Size and the theatre that presented the acclaimed production of the Lenkiewicz translation of An Enemy of The People last year.
Hot foot from playing alongside Ken Stott in the critically lauded production of A View From A Bridge at The Duke of York's, Harry Lloyd is best known as Will Scarlett in BBC1's Robin Hood and as the young David Copperfield in the 2001 BBC adaptation of the Dickens novel. His stage work also includes The Sea at The Theatre Royal Haymarket and Bash at Trafalgar Studios
Suzanne Burden's recent theatre credits include The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse, and Lady Macduff in Patrick Stewart's acclaimed Macbeth. Paul Hickey was last seen on stage in Fall at The Traverse and plays Lafferty in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. Natasha Broomfield has recently appeared in Fiddler on the Roof at The Savoy Theatre and as Daph in BBC TV's The Worst Week of My Life. Jim Bywater has previously appeared at The Arcola Theatre as pragmatic printer Aslaksen in Lenkiewicz's translation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People and in Ibsen's The Lady from The Sea
Written as an expose of what Ibsen saw as the sexual hypocrisy of Victorian society, Ghosts provoked one critic to describe it as "a dirty deed done in public" and had audiences reaching for their smelling salts when it was first staged in 1882. Excited by her son Osvald's return to Norway after years abroad, Mrs Alving is soon forced to unearth the past and ghosts who refuse to be silenced.
The production marks ATC's first project in a series looking at the theme of memory which includes two new plays yet to be announced and a range of Spin Off activities.
Bijan Sheibani is Artistic Director of ATC. His production of Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brothers Size was greeted with universal acclaim and was variously described by UK critics as "Psychologically subtle and emotionally powerful" (The Times), "faultless" (The Guardian) and "outstanding" (The Evening Standard). His Olivier award winning production of Gone Too Far! returned to the Royal Court last year and ATC co-produced the pan London tour to The Albany and the Hackney Empire. Bijan has recently directed a new opera, Tarantula in Petrol Blue at Aldeburgh Music. This summer he makes his directorial debut at The National Theatre with Our Class a new play Tadeusz Slobodzianek.
Rebecca Lenkiewicz's first play, Soho - a Tale of Table Dancers opened at the Arcola Theatre in 2001, won a Fringe First at Edinburgh then toured Israel with the British Council. The Night Season, which opened at the National Theatre in 2004, received the Critics' Circle's Most Promising Playwright Award and was nominated for an Evening Standard Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Other plays include Shoreditch Madonna, Blue Moon Over Poplar (Soho Theatre), A Soldiers Tale (Old Vic), Invisible Mountains (National Theatre Education Department), Faeries (Royal Opera House), Justitia (for the Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company, UK Tour and Sadler's Wells), an adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of The People (Arcola Theatre), Her Naked Skin (Olivier Theatre, National Theatre), Fighting for Words and Caravan of Desire (BBC Radio 4, 2006).
