Full Casting Is Announced For Angus Jackson's RSC Production Of DON QUIXOTE

Full casting is announced today for the Royal Shakespeare Company's Don Quixote, which originally premiered at the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in spring 2016. The production will play at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End from 27 October 2018 to 2 February 2019.

After a lifetime of reading books on chivalry, one eccentric old man heads off on a rumbustious quest to become a wandering knight accompanied by his faithful and equally ill-suited servant, Sancho Panza.

Taking up a lance and sword, Don Quixote sets out on a hilarious journey across medieval Spain, defending the helpless and vanquishing the wicked. Hopelessly unprepared and increasingly losing his grip on reality, with each calamitous adventure the two hapless heroes experience, the romantic ideal of Quixote's books seems further away than ever.

Following its sell-out run at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' death, the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of this legendary comic novel is told by a company of 20 actors accompanied by a band of live musicians.

Alongside the previously announced David Threlfall and Rufus Hound who return to reprise their roles as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza respectively, the full company comprises Will Bliss, Raphael Bushay, Farrell Cox, John Cummins, Richard Dempsey, Ruth Everett, Gabriel Fleary, Richard Leeming, Nicholas Lumley, Natasha Magigi, Tom McCall, Joshua McCord, Bathsheba Piepe, Rosa Robson, Timothy Speyer and Eleanor Wyld.

David Threlfall is best known for his leading role as Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's Shameless. His other recent TV work includes Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This, Black Sea, Housewife 49, What Remains and most recently he appeared in the BBC/Netflix series Troy: Fall of a City. His original appearance in the show in Stratford marked a long-awaited return to the RSC for Threlfall, whose last performance there was in his award-winning role of Smike in the iconic adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby in 1980.

Rufus Hound's recent work includes the Rose Theatre Kingston's War of the Roses cycle, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Savoy Theatre), One Man Two Guvnors (NT/West End), Wind in the Willows (London Palladium Theatre), What the Butler Saw (Curve Leicester), Present Laughter (Chichester) and the upcoming new musical Dusty (UK tour).

The production is once again directed by RSC Associate Director Angus Jackson who previously worked on the critically acclaimed production Oppenheimer, which transferred to the West End in 2015 after a sell-out run at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Last year, he was season director of the ROME MMXVII season of Shakespeare plays (RST and Barbican).

Don Quixote is designed by Robert Innes Hopkins, with music composed by Grant Olding, lighting by Mark Henderson and sound by Fergus O'Hare. The comedy director is Cal McCrystal and fight director is Malcolm Ranson. Movement is by Lucy Cullingford. Puppetry director and designer is Toby Olié. Puppetry co-director is Laura Cubitt.