RIOTOUS comedy The Hypocrite is brought to the RSC stage in Stratford by the acclaimed Hull Truck Theatre Company.
It is April 1642, and Sir John Hotham, Governor of Hull, Member for Beverley and owner of most of East Yorkshire is charged by Parliament to secure the arsenal at Hull and deny entry to King Charles I.
If only it were that simple. With a Royalist siege outside the city walls and the rebellion of the mob within, Civil War seems inevitable and losing his head more than probable.
And that’s to say nothing of his problems at home – a lovesick daughter, a ghost obsessed with the chinaware, sexually arousing furniture and a wife intent on escape.
Caught between two choices, Honour and Advantage, Sir John is suffering the worst day of his life.
Penned by award-winning Hull playwright Richard Bean, whose previous work includes Made in Dagenham, One Man and Two Guvnors, the cast includes Mark Addy of The Full Monty and Game of Thrones fame, as Sir John Hotham, and Caroline Quentin, seen on television in the likes of Men Behaving Badly, Life Of Riley, and Jonathan Creek, as Lady Sarah Hotham. The comedian’s previous stage work includes the RSC production of Les Misérables at London’s Barbican Theatre.
The rest of the cast includes Martin Barrass (Mayor Barnard), Danielle Bird (Drudge), Neil D’Souza (Peregrine Pelham), Rachel Dale (Ensemble), Laura Elsworthy (Connie), Ben Goffe (Charles I/Ghost), Danielle Henry (Sweet Lips/Mme Frottage/Lady Digby), Adrian Hood (Executioner/Captain Moyer), Asif Khan (Captain Jack), Andrew Langtree (Ensemble), Jordan Metcalfe (Duke of York), Sarah Middleton (Frances), Pierro Miel-Mee (Durand), Rowan Polonski (Prince Rupert), Paul Popplewell (Albert Calvert) and Matt Sutton (Saltmarsh).
The production, running in the Swan Theatre from March 30 to April 29, is directed by Phillip Breen, whose recent RSC credits include the The Merry Wives of Windsor in 2012 and The Shoemaker’s Holiday in 2014.
Visit www.rsc.org.uk for tickets and further details.
