Heads it's Lia - tails it's Kristin: The toss of a coin will decide leading lady for Harold Pinter's revived play

By Baz Bamigboye for the Daily Mail

Published: 19:21 EDT, 9 August 2012 | Updated: 19:22 EDT, 9 August 2012

The toss of a coin will determine which role award-winning actresses Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams will play each night in a revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times.

This dramatic swap means that leading man Rufus Sewell may not always know who’s who until the curtain goes up.

The play, originally staged by Peter Hall with Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin and Vivien Merchant (Pinter’s then wife), is set in a swanky farmhouse where married couple Deeley and Kate chat about an impending visit from Kate’s old friend and roommate Anna, whom they haven’t seen for 20 years.

The flip of a coin will determine which role Lia Williams (left) and Kristin Scott Thomas will play

This is one of Pinter’s ‘memory’ plays, so it’s the past that betrays. When Anna does arrive, all three discuss incidents that may, or may not, have happened.

Ian Rickson, who rehearses the new production in late November, thought it would be ‘creatively exciting to mine the play, by having both women playing the parts and swapping on different nights’.

He says there’s a ‘very strong connection between Anna and Kate and they do somehow share the same soul’. Others think the two women could even be aspects of the same person.

‘Sometimes we might even toss a coin to decide who goes on playing what part,’ says Rickson. ‘Rufus also loves the idea, because it gives him lots of opportunity.’

Rufus Sewell won't know who is to play his leading lady until the curtain comes up

This follows another major swap, set up by Danny Boyle when he directed Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller in Frankenstein at the National Theatre.

This column was first with the news that he had decided to have his stars alternate between the monster and his creator.

Rickson would not have dreamt of splitting the roles unless he knew the actresses well. He has directed Scott Thomas twice before: in her Olivier-award winning role in The Seagull and more recently in another Pinter classic, Betrayal. Rickson directed Williams in The Hothouse at the National, and what’s more, the actress has an innate understanding of the point of a Pinter pause.

‘They both have this wonderful, deep intensity — as has Rufus,’ the director told me.

Old Times will begin previews, appropriately enough, at The Harold Pinter Theatre (the old Comedy Theatre) around January 12. A spokeswoman for producer Sonia Friedman said that date was still being finalised. An official opening night will be held late in January, with tickets going on sale in the autumn.

Rickson will direct Jez Butterworth’s new play The River before he gets to Old Times. He has just received the latest draft of the play. Performances start at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Upstairs on October 18. They famously collaborated, along with Mark Rylance, on Jerusalem, which was a phenomenal hit in London and New York.

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MARATHON legend Haile Gebrselassie admires one athlete above all others, and shared his secret in conversation with Stephen Daldry at the Criterion Theatre on Tuesday. He said that while he applauds sport stars with multiple Olympic medals (including swimmer Michael Phelps with 18 golds) it doesn’t mean they’re the greatest.
So who, in his opinion, is tops?
Paula Radcliffe — even though she missed out on Olympic glory. ‘I’m telling you, she’s the best long-distance runner,’ he said. ‘She has achieved more than anybody. She’s the one: her marathon, her 10,000 metres — amazing!’
It was extraordinary to listen to a man who could end up president of Ethiopia.
At 1pm today, actor Clive Owen will be at the Criterion talking to Rwandan mountain biker Adrien Niyonshuti.

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Joe Cole is the next big thing

The day after Joe Cole and I had cold drinks at Costa in Olympia I bumped into a top film executive and the moment I mentioned Cole’s name he exclaimed: ‘He’s going places!’

Cole has done Skins, and he’s in the second series of The Hour. But it’s the scorching performance he gives in low budget film Offender, which opened Wednesday, that marks him out.

Offender is about Tommy, played with fantastic ferocity by Cole, who gets himself locked up in a young offenders institution so he can get at the ruthless yobs who beat up his pregnant girlfriend.

‘He hasn’t seen the bigger picture — which is the rest of his life,’ Cole explained. The anger and sadness expressed by Cole’s character is what makes the film work.

Cole thought his own life was over when he dropped out of college. He felt he had disappointed his parents and, for a while, he moved away.

By day he worked in the carpet department of John Lewis, by night he studied acting with the National Youth Theatre. He went with a troupe around schools and borstals. ‘I was a regular guy, who thought he was going nowhere.’

Now he’s writing a TV comedy series with Matt Lucas, and there are other film roles in the works.

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Sian Phillips will join the cast

Sian Phillips, Harriet Thorpe and Matt Rawle, who will be joining Will Young and Michelle Ryan in director Rufus Norris’s new production of the Fred Ebb/ John Kander musical Cabaret.

Ms Thorpe was in Norris’s last iteration of the show, based on Christopher Isherwood’s study of life at the Kit Kat Klub as the Nazis were on the rise in pre-war Berlin. The show will play four performances at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley from August 30 before moving into the Savoy Theatre from October 4.

By the way, do watch out for Broken, Norris’s sublime movie for BBC Films (backed by Cuba Pictures and Bill Kenwright Films) which stars Tim Roth, Bill Milner and a fabulously talented newcomer by the name of Eloise Laurence. It will be at the BFI London Film Festival in October.

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Aaron Sidwell, who stars in the Elliot Davis and James Bourne musical Loserville, which will start previewing at the Garrick Theatre on October 1. The show, which is transferring from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, is based on an album Bourne released seven years ago about a computer nerd with geeky ideas.

Gareth Gates was in the show in Leeds but he’d already signed up to do a panto so isn’t available for the Garrick. Producer Kevin Wallace said the musical’s book and general structure has been overhauled in time for rehearsals on September 10.

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Anna O’Byrne will join the cast of Phantom Of The Opera on September 3. She’ll be playing Christine Daae twice a week, as alternate to Sofia Escobar.

What’s so special about Ms O’Byrne, apart from looking like cyclist Victoria Pendleton?

I haven’t seen her perform live but I did catch the DVD featuring her as Christine in the Australian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom sequel Love Never Dies, which had a re-vamp after the original production ran at the Adelphi.

Perfect: With movie-star looks and a beautiful voice, Anna O'Byrne is worth watching

O’Byrne has a beautiful voice and movie star good looks. I’m told that she’s happy to come to London to ‘look and learn’. 

Meanwhile, Sierra Boggess, who played Christine in Love Never Dies here, is currently playing Fantine in Les Miserables at the Queen’s Theatre. She, too, was great in Love . . . and soared along with ALW’s score.

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Action man: Renner takes the stage

Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, who star in The Bourne Legacy, the fourth in the Bourne movie series.

He is also the first not to star Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. 

Renner, who was in the last Mission Impossible and The Avengers, plays Aaron Cross, who gets caught up in a rogue CIA operation.

When the whole thing comes crashing down, Renner and research scientist Weisz are forced to go on the run.

It’s a marvellously intense thriller and though it helps if you’ve seen the other Bourne movies, you can still have a good time if you haven’t.

Just sit back and go with it.

Bourne 5 will shoot late next year.