Ralph Fiennes in rehearsal for Four Quartets.
- Credit: Matt Humphrey
Theatre Royal Bath reopens this month as globally renowned actor Ralph Fiennes directs and stars in a world premiere stage adaptation of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets.
The show will be performed from May 25 to June 5.
Ralph Fiennes’ distinguished stage work is matched by performances in some of the greatest films of our time, winning of a Tony Award for playing Hamlet and appearing in films such as Harry Potter, Schindler’s List and In Bruges
Four Quartets is directed by Fiennes, who is joined by a creative team including Hildegard Bechtler (designer) who won an Olivier Award for After The Dance at the National Theatre and received nominations for Top Hat and Oresteia; Tim Lutkin (lighting), winner of an Olivier Award for Chimerica and Christopher Shutt (sound), winner of a Tony Award for War Horse.
Ghosts
Adura Onashile is a star on the rise. She wrote Expensive Shit, set in a Scottish toilet and Fela Kuti’s nightclub in Lagos, and was due to portray Medea at last year’s Edinburgh international festival. Her latest is an audio drama about empire, to be heard on a walk through Glasgow.
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Four Quartets,
Theatre Royal, Bath, 25th May to 5th June, and on tour
TS Eliot liked the idea that his poetry might go beyond poetry just as Beethoven, in his late string quartets, wrote music beyond music. In this socially-distanced show, Ralph Fiennes plumbs the mystery, the sense of loss and foreboding during the interwar period. Eliot’s
Four Quartets is written with a trembling, portentous cadaver. Fiennes “performs” and renews the lines in a stage premiere designed by Hildegard Bechtler. Co-produced with the Royal & Derngate, Northampton, the show goes there after Bath, then on to Oxford and…
Last modified on Thu 18 Mar 2021 01.14 EDT
Ralph Fiennes is to direct and star in a solo theatre adaptation of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets that will tour the UK this summer.
A co-production by Theatre Royal Bath and the Royal & Derngate in Northampton, Four Quartets will be staged first at those venues in May and June, then visit Oxford Playhouse and Cambridge Arts Theatre and other destinations yet to be announced.
Fiennes, who recently played archaeologist Basil Brown in the Bafta-nominated Sutton Hoo drama The Dig, was last on stage in Beat the Devil at the Bridge theatre, London, in 2020. He portrayed the playwright David Hare in a monologue detailing Hare’s experience of contracting coronavirus and the government’s response to the pandemic.