Simon Russell Beale to Lead MR FOOTE'S OTHER LEG at Hampstead This Autumn

The Daily Mail writes that Simon Russell Beale will star in Ian Kelly's MR FOOTE'S OTHER LEG at the Hampstead Theatre this fall. Richard Eyre directs, with Michael Codron as producer.

Beale will portray 'Samuel Foote' in the play, which Kelly adapted for the stage from his biography of Foote.

Eyre, who is also working on the film THE DRESSER, has been working on "comic ditties" to play off the character's signature pegleg. He told the Mail that Beale will have to wear a wooden leg for half the show.

MR FOOTE'S OTHER LEG is described on Kelly's website as an "18th century courtroom drama and exploration of the origins of the British sense of humour, centred on a biography of the greatest lost figure of Georgian London: one-legged comedy superstar Samuel Foote, who wrote a series of hit comedies for one-legged actors (rarely performed since for obvious reasons) single-handedly kept political comedy alive in London and Dublin in the glory years of Georgian print satire, was arraigned for buggery in 1776, to the wonder of the London (and American) press, and has some claim to be both the 18th century's Oscar Wilde and the founding father of the much vaunted 'British sense of humour.'"

A prolific UK stage actor, Beale last appeared in the West End in THE HOTHOUSE. Before that, he starred in COLLABORATORS, DEATHTRAP, MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT and CANDIDE, as well as Broadway's JUMPERS, which earned him a Tony nomination in 2004.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride