BEING SHAKESPEARE At Trafalgar Studios 1 Opens Tonight

Simon Callow will star in BEING SHAKESPEARE at Trafalgar Studios 1, opening on Wednesday 22 June, with previews having run from 15 June, running until 23 July. He brings to life Shakespeare's unforgettable characters and the real man behind the legend in this new play, which comes to the West End for a strictly limited summer season after a hugely successful tour and staging at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year.

BEING SHAKESPEARE follows Simon Callow's major international success with The Mystery of Charles Dickens (West End and Broadway) and his London sell-out hit Dr Marigold & Mr Chops. Simon's many films include A Room with a View, Maurice, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love and Christmas Carol: The Movie, and television includes Rome, as Charles Dickens in an episode of Doctor Who and Tom Chance in the series Chance in a Million. His latest TV appearance was in the Channel 4 series Jamie's Dream School. His most recent stage roles include a hailed performance as Sir Toby Belch in Peter Hall's sold out production of Twelfth Night at the National Theatre, and Pozzo in Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Ronald Pickup. He has written biographies of Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. His autobiography, My Life in Pieces, was published last year by Nick Hern Books and won the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.

BEING SHAKESPEARE is a new play written by Jonathan Bate, the pre-eminent Shakespeare biographer and editor of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has just been elected Provost of Worcester College and Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and is a Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His book, The Genius of Shakespeare (1997), is widely held as the best modern book on Shakespeare, and his most recent book, Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare, was published last year.

BEING SHAKESPEARE is directed by Tom Cairns, whose theatre work includes Phaedra (Donmar), All About My Mother (Old Vic) and The Odyssey and Aristocrats (National), and produced by Ambassador Theatre Group and ACT Productions.

BEING SHAKESPEARE
Trafalgar Studios 1
14 Whitehall
London SW1A 2DY

Performances: Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm; Thursday and Saturday matinee at 2.30pm (N.B. no performance on Tuesday 28 June, but additional matinee on Wednesday 29 June)
Tickets: £20.00 - £45.00
Box Office: 0844 871 7632
Groups: 0844 871 7644
Creative Learning: 0844 871 7627
Access Booking: 0844 871 7677, or via Typetalk: 18001 0844 871 7677 (textphone)
Website: www.beingshakespeare.com

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