Barry Diller and Sonia Friedman announced today that acclaimed stage and screen actor Richard Coyle will return to the West End to play the iconic role of Atticus Finch in the critically acclaimed production of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird – a new play by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Bartlett Sher.
Coyle was last on the West End stage in the Olivier Award nominated hit play, Ink. Niall Buggy (Olivier and Drama Desk Award-winner) will also join the production as Judge Taylor. Coyle and Buggy will join the original London company and begin performances from 15 August for the current booking period until 19 November at the Gielgud Theatre.
Rafe Spall and Jim Norton, who are currently playing Atticus Finch and Judge Taylor respectively, will have their final performances on 13 August.
The Harper Lee adaptation has been one of the major hits of this year’s West End season, playing to full houses at the Gielgud Theatre since its opening in March.
Richard Coyle (Atticus Finch) and Niall Buggy (Judge Taylor) join Harry Attwell (Mr Cunningham/Boo Radley), Amanda Boxer (Mrs Henry Dubose), Poppy Lee Friar (Mayella Ewell), John Hastings (Bailiff), Simon Hepworth (Mr Roscoe/Dr Reynolds), Laura Howard (Miss Stephanie/Dill’s Mother), Lloyd Hutchinson (Link Deas), Gwyneth Keyworth (Scout Finch), Tom Mannion (Sheriff Heck Tate), David Moorst (Dill Harris), Pamela Nomvete (Calpurnia), Jim Norton (Judge Taylor), Patrick O’Kane (Bob Ewell), Jude Owusu (Tom Robinson), Harry Redding (Jem Finch), David Sturzaker (Horace Gilmer) and Natasha Williams (Mrs Dubose’s Maid).
Helen Belbin, Laurence Belcher, Paul Birchard, Ryan Ellsworth, Rebecca Hayes, Danny Hetherington, Matthew Jure, Anna Munden, Tiwai Muza, Oyin Orija and Itoya Osagiede make up the ensemble and understudies, with Candida Caldicot on organ and Ciyo Brown and Jack Benjamin on guitar, to complete the company.
Set in Maycomb, Alabama in 1934, To Kill a Mockingbird has provided American literature with some of its most indelible characters: lawyer Atticus Finch, the tragically wronged Tom Robinson, Atticus’ daughter Scout, her brother Jem, their housekeeper and caretaker Calpurnia and the reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley. For the past six decades and for every generation, this story, its characters and portrait of small-town America have helped to, and continue to, inspire conversation and change.
Harper Lee’s enduring story of racial injustice and childhood innocence has sold more than 45 million copies of the novel worldwide. 2020 marked the 60th anniversary of its publication.
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