Cast and Creative Team Set For THE RAT TRAP at Park Theatre

Troupe has announced the full cast and creative team for its forthcoming production of Noël Coward’s The Rat Trap, reimagined by Bill Rosenfield.

Kirsty Patrick Ward directs the previously announced Ewan Miller (Keld Maxwell), Lily Nichol (Sheila Brandreth) and Angela Sims (Burrage), who are joined by Daniel Abbott (Edmund Crowe), Gina Bramhill (Olive Lloyd-Kennedy), Zoe Goriely (Ruby Raymond) and Ailsa Joy (Naomi Frith-Bassington) in this reimagining for the centenary year of Coward’s first play. 

Also announced, two additional performances have been added to the run on the 2 and 9 March at 7.30pm; and Claire Llewellyn for Rc-Annie (Fight Director) completes the creative team.

About The Rat Trap

In fashionable 1920s Belgravia, Sheila, a talented novelist, and Keld, an aspiring playwright, embark on married life. Both are fiercely ambitious, but when Keld’s career takes off and Sheila’s doesn’t, professional jealousy and an affair have a devastating effect on their marriage.

Startlingly moving, but full of customary sparkling wit and dark humour, Noël Coward’s first play is given a stylish period revival for its centenary year. The Rat Trap is lovingly revised by Bill Rosenfield and presented by Troupe, who return to Park Theatre after its critically acclaimed production of The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2.

 Biographies

Daniel Abbott plays Edmund Crowe. His theatre credits include Fanny (King’s Head Theatre), Linck & Mülhahn (Hampstead Theatre), Are You As Nervous As I Am? (Greenwich Theatre), Groan Ups (UK tour), The Tempest, Measure for Measure (Guildford Shakespeare Company), The Lion in Winter (English Theatre Frankfurt), Wasted (Orange Tree Theatre), Pride and Prejudice (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Richard II, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, Henry V, The Famous Victories of Henry V (RSC), The Green Children, Progress (The Avenue Theatre, Ipswich), and Wuthering Heights and The Comedy of Errors (Red Rose Chain). His television credits include Silo, Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Colour, Marcella and Save Me.

Gina Bramhill plays Olive Lloyd-Kennedy. Her theatre credits include Much Ado About Nothing (RSC), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Theatre Royal Bath), Edmond de Bergerac (Birmingham Rep, UK tour), Bad Jews (Theatre Royal Bath, St James Theatre, Arts Theatre), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Cheek by Jowl), Chicken (Southwark Playhouse), and Six Characters in Search of an Author (Headlong). Her television credits include Beyond Paradise, Bait, Miss Fallaci, The Flatshare, Avenue 5, Silent Witness, Us, Agatha and the Midnight Murders, Kate & Koji, Black Mirror, Sherlock, Brief Encounters, The Living and the Dead, Father Brown, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, Endeavour, Mr Selfridge, Being Human, Without You, Pete Versus Life and Victoria Wood’s Midlife Christmas; and for film, Shoshana, Northern Comfort, Pleasure Island, The Wedding Video, Red Lights, Lotus Eaters and Made in Dagenham.

Zoe Goriely plays Ruby Raymond. Her theatre credits include As Long As We Are Breathing (Arcola Theatre), and Catalyst (The North Wall Arts Centre). Her television credits include Trigger Point.

Ailsa Joy plays Naomi Frith-Bassington. Her theatre credits include Noises Off (UK tour), As You Like It, Boatman Town, Antigone (Creation Theatre), Top Girls (Liverpool Everyman), Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse), Bad Jews (Theatre Royal Bath, UK tour, Theatre Royal Haymarket), Jack and the Beanstalk (The Theatre, Chipping Norton), The Three Musketeers, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Iris Theatre), Not Quite Jerusalem (Finborough Theatre),The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Guildford Shakespeare Company), TimePlays (Hampton Court Palace), Berenice (The Space), The Wind in the Willows (Polka Theatre), Fast Track, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Peer Gynt (The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford), Much Ado About Nothing, Arabian Nights, Pride and Prejudice (The Drill Hall), and The Sirens’ Call (Watermill Theatre). Her television credits include Plebs and The Royals.

Ewan Miller plays Keld Maxwell. His theatre credits include Octopolis (Hampstead Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (National Theatre), Milkshake (Traverse Theatre), and The Comedy of Errors, A Christmas Carol, and Joke (Citizens Theatre). His television credits include Debriefing The President, The Gray House, and Crime.

Lily Nichol plays Sheila Brandreth. Her theatre credits include The Other Boleyn Girl (Chichester Festival Theatre), Henry VI Part I, Maydays, Imperium 1: Conspirator, Imperium 2: Dictator (RSC), Blood Wedding (Salisbury Playhouse), and Julius Caesar (Sheffield Theatres). Her television credits include 3 Body Problem, Code of Silence, Death in Paradise, Renegade Nell, Maternal, Lockwood & Co, The South Westerlies, and I Hate Suzie.

Angela Sims plays Burrage. Her theatre credits include Gaslight, Improbable Fiction, Stepping Out, A Party to Murder, Absent Friends, Building Blocks, Season’s Greetings, Ten Times Table (The Mill at Sonning), A Star Danced, The Wizard of Oz (Watermill Theatre), and Blithe Spirit (Octagon Theatre). Her television credits include Dreamland, Vera, Back, Call the Midwife, Living the Dream, The Crown, Chickens, Frankie, Psychoville, Law & Order: UK, Casualty, New Tricks, Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley, The Bill, EastEnders, Murder in Mind, The Queen’s Nose, Happiness, Cry Wolf, Great Expectations, London’s Burning, McCallum, and Five Children and It; and for film, Cruella, The Little Stranger, Dreams of a Life, and Stoned.

Noël Coward (1899–1973) was a playwright, actor and composer whose sharp wit and theatrical flair made him one of the most defining voices of 20th-Century Theatre. He made his West End debut as a writer with I’ll Leave It to You in 1920, followed by The Rat Trap, written when he was just 18 and first staged in 1926. His breakthrough came with The Vortex (1924), a bold and controversial play that cemented his reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Over the next two decades, Coward wrote a string of stage hits, including Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1930), Blithe Spirit (1941), and Present Laughter (1942). In 1964, he became the first living playwright to have a play staged at The National Theatre, directing a revival of Hay Fever. Knighted in 1970, Coward’s legacy lives on as one of the great figures of British stage history.