Legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece film Fanny & Alexander is being translated to the stage by BAFTA award-winning writer Stephen Beresford – and what an opening to The Old Vic’s bicentenary season it’s set to prove.
With a starry cast including Penelope Wilton (Taken At Midnight, West End – Olivier Award for Best Actress), Jonathan Slinger (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, West End) and Lolita Chakrabarti (Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company), this classic story looks like it’ll be a must-see stage show to boot – take a sneak peek into the rehearsal room below.
The cast of Fanny & Alexander in rehearsal at The Old Vic (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Sargon Yelda (Oscar Ekdahl) and Penelope Wilton (Helena Ekdahl) in rehearsal for Fanny & Alexander at The Old Vic (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
The cast of Fanny & Alexander in rehearsal at The Old Vic (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Opening as part of The Old Vic’s bicentenary season, Fanny & Alexander welcomes audiences to a fictional town in 1900s Sweden, a land of gilded romance and glamour in which siblings Fanny and Alexander reside.
But the duo’s world is turned upside down when their widowed mother remarries the iron-willed local bishop, and as creative freedom and rigid orthodoxy clash, a war ensues between imagination and austerity – and for Fanny & Alexander, between a lavish, joyful, playful life… and the severe punishments meted out to them by their callous new stepfather.
Matt Gavan (Michael Bergman/Aron Retzinsky) in rehearsal for Fanny & Alexander at The Old Vic (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Jonathan Slinger (Gustav Adolf Ekdahl) and Lolita Chakrabarti (Alma Ekdahl/Helena Vergérus) in rehearsal for Fanny & Alexander at The Old Vic (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Vivian Oparah (Maj) in rehearsal for Fanny & Alexander at The Old Vic (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Fanny & Alexander previews at The Old Vic from 21 February, with opening night on 1 March.
Book your Fanny & Alexander tickets today!