Propeller Comes to London With Richard III and The Comedy of Errors

Propeller theatre company's two touring productions of The Comedy of Errors and Richard III will play a three-week run at Hampstead Theatre in June 2011, as part of its international tour.

Edward Hall is Artistic Director of Propeller and, since January 2010, of Hampstead Theatre. He has directed both the shows:

"I'm very happy to be able to bring Shakespeare to Hampstead for the first time and to bring together the two most important theatre companies in my life for this limited season. New writing should be treated like a classic and classics like new writing: I hope I've been able to do just that with these two Shakespeare plays."
- Edward Hall

The Comedy of Errors and Richard III will be performed by the same casts, and run in repertory between 22 June and 9 July (joint press day 24 June).

Propeller's production of Richard III creates a diabolical adventure, taking Hammer Horror and Grand Guignol as its inspirations. Macabre humour and bloody sensuality is the order of the day as the devilish House of York, led by the machiavellian Richard, takes on the purer-than-pure House of Lancaster in an England riven by civil war. This production is the sixth and final chapter in Hall's staging of Shakespeare's complete Wars of the Roses cycle.

The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare's neatest comedies. Following the example of Roman theatre, it is a model of comic plotting and finely balanced construction. Two pairs of twins, each separated from their sibling at birth, leave a perfectly symmetrical trail of confusion behind them when a shipwreck unites them on the same island. Propeller's production emphasises the light and the laughter in this intricately comic masterpiece.

Edward Hall is the founder and Artistic Director of Propeller, for whom he has directed A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice, amongst others. In 2002, Hall directed Rose Rage, a two-part adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV trilogy. He was appointed Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre in January 2010. He is also an artistic associate of the National Theatre, the Old Vic, and The Watermill Theatre, Newbury.

Propeller's tour is presented in association with The Touring Partnership.

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