Rupert Goold To Direct Pinter's 'No Man's Land' At Duke

Rupert Goold will direct Michael Gambon, David Bradley, David Walliams and Nick Dunning in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land, opening at the Duke of York's Theatre on 27 September 2008, with press night on 7 October 2008.  The production is currently booking until 3 January 2009. A Gate Theatre, Dublin production, No Man's Land will be presented by Sonia Friedman Productions and Michael Colgan, with design by Giles Cadle, lighting by Neil Austin and sound and music by Adam Cork. Goold's production transfers to London following its opening at the Gate Theatre, Dublin in August.

From the pen of one of the greatest living playwrights, comes Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter's tragicomic gem about two aging writers, Hirst and Spooner.  After meeting on Hampstead Heath, they return home for a late-night session of witty banter, sinister power games, and the worship of alcohol, watched by Hirst's henchman, Briggs and Foster. This unique and haunting play is part mystery drama, part homage to the ghosts of the past and the fiction of memory.

No Man's Land received its world premiere in 1975 in a National Theatre production at the Old Vic, with Peter Hall directing a stellar cast which included Michael Feast, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Terence Rigby.  In 1992, Pinter played Hirst in the Almeida Theatre production, directed by David Leveaux, and in 2001 directed his own play for the National Theatre with Danny Dyer, Corin Redgrave, Andy de la Tour and John Wood. No Man's Land was first produced at the Gate Theatre, Dublin in 1997 to great acclaim as part of the Theatre's second Pinter Festival.

Born in 1930 in East London, multi award-winning playwright, screen writer, director, political activist and actor, Harold Pinter has written twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming and Betrayal, twenty-one screenplays including The Servant, The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant's Woman, and directed twenty-seven theatre productions, including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray and many of his own.  In his seventy-fifth year, Harold Pinter received the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature.  He was appointed CBE in 1966 and became a Companion of Honour in 2002. His many awards include the Laurence Olivier Award and the Molière d'Honneur for Lifetime Achievement.   In October 2006, Pinter performed Samuel Beckett's monologue Krapp's Last Tape at the Royal Court Theatre.

Michael Gambon (Hirst) has worked extensively in theatre, film and television.  He has previously appeared in Pinter's Betrayal, Mountain Language and The Caretaker, and in 2005 played Lambert in a staged reading of Celebration at the Albery as part of the Gate Theatre, Dublin's celebration of Pinter's 75th birthday.  Two years later he reprised this role in John Crowley's television film for Channel 4.  His extensive award-winning stage career began in 1962 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin and a year later he joined Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company.  His most recent theatre credits include Cressida for the Almeida at the Albery Theatre, The Caretaker at the Comedy Theatre, A Number for the Royal Court, Endgame at the Albery Theatre and the Gate Theatre, Dublin's production of Eh Joe at the Duke of York's Theatre.  Gambon's extensive film and television credits include The Singing Detective, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Longitude, Mary Reilly, Sleepy Hollow, Gosford Park, Sylvia, Angels in America, Layer Cake, The Life Aquatic, The Good Shepherd and Amazing Grace, as well as four Harry Potter films in which he plays the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Professor Albus Dumbledore, the most recent of which, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will be released later this year.  In 1992 Gambon was awarded a CBE and in1998 he received a Knighthood for his contribution to the arts.

David Bradley (Spooner) has most recently been seen at the Trafalgar Studios in Richard Crane's one man show, The Quiz.   His extensive theatre credits include Davies in Pinter's The Caretaker for Sheffield Theatres and the Tricycle Theatre, and Max in The Homecoming for the National Theatre.  His other theatre credits include the title role in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, The Night Season, The Mysteries and King Lear all for the National Theatre, Phedre and Britannicus for the Almeida Theatre, the title role in Titus Andronicus for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya for the Donmar Warehouse.  On film he has played Hogwart's Caretaker, Argus Filch, in all the Harry Potter films, the most recent of which, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will be released later this year, as well as Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Nickleby and Gabriel and Me.  His television credits include True Dare Kiss, Ideal, Blackpool, Vanity Fair, Reckless, Our Mutual Friend and Our Friends in the North.

David Walliams (Foster) is best known for his work on television as half of the comedy duo (with Matt Lucas) that created the hugely popular BBC series Little Britain.  He recently played Frankie Howerd in Rather You Than Me for the BBC and Greville White in Stephen Poliakoff's Capturing Mary also for the BBC.   His other television credits include three series of Little Britain, Waking the Dead, Randall and Hopkirk Deceased and George Eliot:  A Scandalous Life.  His film work includes the forthcoming Prince Caspian, as well as Run Fat Boy Run, A Cock and Bull Story, Stardust and Plunkett and Maclean.  Walliams will be making his West End theatre debut in No Man's Land.

Nick Dunning's (Briggs) theatre credits include Don Carlos for Dublin's Rough Magic Theatre, Betrayal for the Gate Theatre Dublin, The Home Place and The Homecoming at the Gate Theatre Dublin and the Comedy Theatre, Our Country's Good for the Royal Court and The Taming of the Shrew for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  His television credits include The Tudors, Waking the Dead, Midsomer Murders, Vanity Fair and The Firm.  His film credits include 50 Dead Men Walking, Whistleblower, Alexander The Great, The Return, In America and Dark Angel.

Rupert Goold is Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre, where his credits include Rough Crossings, Faustus, Paradise Lost and Restoration.  He has most recently directed Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Last Days of Judas Iscariot for the Almeida Theatre and later this year he will direct Cameron Mackintosh's Olivier! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.  His other directing credits include The Glass Menagerie for the Apollo Theatre, The Tempest and Speaking Like Magpies for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Hamlet, Insignificance, Betrayal and Othello all for Northampton Theatre Royal where he was Artistic Director.  His production of Macbeth, with Patrick Stewart in the title role, transferred from Chichester Festival Theatre to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End and then played seasons at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Lyceum Theatre in New York.  Goold won the 2007 Evening Standard, Critics' Circle and South Bank Show Awards as well as the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director for this production.

Sonia Friedman Productions have collaborated with the Gate Theatre on many productions in the West End including Eh Joe by Samuel Beckett, the staged reading of Celebration to mark Harold Pinter's 75th birthday, The Home Place and Afterplay by Brian Friel, Port Authority by Conor McPherson and See You Next Tuesday by Francis Verber, adapted by Ronald Harwood.  Together they presented the Gate Theatre Dublin's production of Brian Friel's Faith Healer in New York, starring Ralph Fiennes, Cherry Jones and Ian McDiarmid, directed by Jonathan Kent.

The Director of the Gate Theatre, Michael Colgan, has a unique association with Harold Pinter, having presented four major festivals of his work. The first two festivals were at the Gate in 1994 and 1997 and featured the involvement of the author as both actor and director. Then, as a 70th birthday celebration, Michael Colgan curated a festival at Lincoln Center, New York, featuring productions by the Gate, the Almeida and the Royal Court. The theatre marked Pinter's 75th birthday by producing Old Times and Betrayal along with many readings and presentations of his other plays, prose and poetry.  In 2006, in association with Sonia Friedman Productions, the Gate presented a staged reading of Celebration at the Albery Theatre. Also in that year to coincide with him being awarded the tenth Europe Theatre Prize, the theatre presented a one day event in Turin. The Gate is preparing for another major retrospective of his work in Dublin to take place in 2010.