James Macdonald’s acclaimed production of The Father, starring Kenneth Cranham and Claire Skinner, will bring its dark comic tale to the West End this autumn when it transfers to London’s Wyndham’s Theatre for an eight-week season.
The Theatre Royal Bath Production, which had its first London outing at the Tricycle Theatre in May, will play at the West End venue from 30 September to 21 November.
The Molière Award-winning play by Florian Zeller, which is translated by Christopher Hampton, tells the story of 80-year-old Andre, a former tap dancer living with his daughter Anne and her husband Antoine, or was he an engineer whose daughter lives in London with her new lover Pierre? Still wearing his pyjamas and unable to find his watch, Andre begins to wonder if he’s losing control.
Starring Cranham as the 80-year-old dementia patient, The Father opened to throngs of five-star reviews when it debuted in the capital, being described by the Evening Standard’s Henry Hitchings as “Perfectly measured” and “Quietly devastating”, with the Scottish actor’s performance in the production deemed “Simply shattering” by the Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming.
The Father will open at the Wyndham’s Theatre following the forthcoming run of Richard Bean’s The Mentalists, in which Stephen Merchant makes his stage debut from 3 July.