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Theatre

The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios

16 Jan 15 – 11 Apr 15, 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM

Stage and screen star James McAvoy (Macbeth) and Jamie Lloyd (director) reunite for Trafalgar Transformed Season 2 with the first ever revival of Peter Barnes’ satirical comedy about aristocracy.

By Lucy Brooks on 28/10/2014

1 CW reader is interested
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios Lucy Brooks
After the success of their West End Macbeth, which earned nominations for Best Revival and Best Actor for McAvoy, it’s an exciting prospect to see Jamie Lloyd and James McAvoy work together again, and on a show so radically different. 
Satire on the wealthy
Described as a ‘baroque comedy’, The Ruling Class begins with the suicide of the thirteenth Earl of Gurney. His sole surviving heir is a paranoid schizophrenic, Jack, newly released from a mental institution and prone to donning a monk’s habit and insisting he is is Jesus. But Jack is not the only unhinged person in this family: There's Uncle Charles who’s trying to marry Jack off to his own mistress, Charles’ wife who’s sleeping with Jack’s psychiatrist and a host of other relatives who think they are entitled to the Gurney’s estate. As Mr Tucker, the butler, and only voice of reason, puts it, “They got the power, they make the rules.” This is a scalding satire on aristocracy and the elitist class. The play was such a success when it premiered in 1968, Peter O’Toole purchased the rights and went on to star as Jack in the film adaptation. 
James McAvoy: theatre 2015
McAvoy thrives on playing flawed heroes, on both stage and film. The Independent was enthralled by his performance as the Scottish king: “his beyond-it-all husky chuckling finely traces the stages by which Macbeth comes to the near-suicidal recognition that the cosmic joke is on him.” And his moving screen performances as a grief-wracked soldier in Atonement and in Inside I’m Dancing, as a young man confined to a wheelchair, prove his versatility.
Jamie Lloyd, director 
Lloyd too is ever on the rise, with direction of the upcoming Back to the Future musical in his sights next year and the success of his Trafalgar Transformed season that has included Jane Horrocks in East is East and Martin Freeman as Richard III. “I am honoured to be directing the first ever revival of Peter Barnes’ anarchic cult comedy,” he says, “Which feels more politically resonant than ever in the run up to the general election next year.”


More tickets will go on sale on the 2nd February, 2nd March and 2nd April.




What The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios
Where Trafalgar Studios, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY | MAP
Nearest tube Charing Cross (underground)
When 16 Jan 15 – 11 Apr 15, 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Price £15-£52.50
Website Click here to book via ATG Tickets



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  • What the critics say

    THE GUARDIAN

    "the play is held together by McAvoy’s mesmerising performance. In the first half he radiates a benign grace...But McAvoy also has the wit to play the reformed Jack not as a ranting zealot but as a stylishly cold-hearted figure... all too chillingly relevant."

     Michael Billington

    THE TELEGRAPH

    "Whatever you think of Peter Barnes’s riotously funny-peculiar assault on the English upper class... you have to chalk McAvoy’s performance down as one of the year’s must-sees... Few directors have Lloyd’s ability to transport us to the upper echelons of theatrical pleasure."

    Dominic Cavendish

    About the venue

    TRAFALGAR STUDIOS

    A 1930s theatre with two intimate stages, The Trafalgar Studios lie at the heart of the city in Whitehall. Formally known as The Whitehall Theatre, it opened in 1930 with a play called The Way to Treat a Woman and in the 50s, it became home to the famous Whitehall farce plays. It closed for a year in 2003 before re-opening under a new name, Trafalgar Studios, with a production of Othello by the RSC.

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