Voltaire's Candide Gets Extended Run At Greenwhich Playhouse Through 5/3

Popular demand and excellent notices have persuaded Alice de Sousa, Greenwich Playhouse' Artistic director and the Producers worldzend to extend the current run of Voltaire's Candide at the Greenwich Playhouse for a further six performances until Sunday, May 3rd.

Complimenting the solo performance, Time Out's Rosie Jackson writes, ‘[Hancock] slips easily between Candide, tutor Pangloss and his bit of crumpet Paquette'; in her 4-star critique in South London Press Toni Peters, praises the ‘ideal setting' of the Playhouse for the ‘fantastical happenings' as the characters are brought to life with an ‘impressive range of accents; for extraextra.org's David Hermann these were ‘immaculately applied accents' from a ‘fantastically agile actor,' in ‘an endearing and undeniably entertaining piece'. Elsewhere, French residents in London are encouraged to see the show with a four-star rating in their own ex-patriot on-line directory. www.franceinlondon.co.uk

Scots-born; Prentis Hancock trained locally with Rose Bruford and after some years in repertory and festival theatres, was a young leading man during the Golden Age of British Television. After debuting in Dr Finlay's Casebook, he appeared in the award-winning The Last of the Mohicans with early success in the title-role Me McKenna [BBC2] leading to dozens of regular performances in series including Spy Trap, SPACE: 1999 and numerous Doctor Who stories. Hundreds of film and television roles, from Colditz to Kapatoo, through Bergerac to The Bill, includEd Scottish Television's award-winning The Bubble Boy. Many film appearances include When Eight Bells Toll, The Monster Club, Defence of the Realm, Dr Jeckyll and Mister Hyde.... He keeps his hand in on stage in London with occasional Scots revivals such as The Cut and Amongst Unbroken Hearts and travels frequently to Conventions of two Scifi cult shows, the Pinewood-made SPACE:1999 and our own Doctor Who. During the first week of Voltaire's Candide, French fans crossed the Channel and Canadian fans have flown the Atlantic to see it, bringing with them an invitation to perform the solo show next year in Austin,Texas.

Voltaire's Candide or Optimism was written exactly 250 years ago. The leading light of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, his much-loved loved and most-read novella remains a winner. Secretly published, Candide became an overnight success. Taking as his model, Leibniz's treatise Optimism, Voltaire explodes the thesis that the world is the ‘very best' that God can make it. This ‘philosophy' is epitomised in the character of Master Pangloss and his famous assertions that ‘All is for the best ... in the best of possible worlds'.

Remaining true to the text, Hancock portrays Voltaire as Storyteller and through his naïve, young hero Candide's adventures and mishaps, pokes fun at religion and theologians, governments and armies, philosophies and philosophers. He spares no-one, not the Church, not clerics, not Jews; neither Jesuits nor Moslems. As he cleverly shreds the 'optimist' viewpoint of the earlier philosopher, nothing is safe from his forensic gaze in this eye-popping tale. A savage, satirical lampoon at the time of writing, many of these themes remain as valid today as when they were written.

The play is a wonderful vehicle for the actor's many talents and versatile characterisations. Children chortle, teenagers laugh out loud while Mums and Dads smile and nod wisely. [12A rec].

‘a great voice and stage presence ... a Jackanory episode for grown-ups' - The Scotsman

Further information, interviews or images, please contact Lisa Kingsnorth at SPIN tel+44(0)845 257 1479: fx O845 257 1463: info@marketingspin.co.uk

http://www.voltairescandide.com

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