Globe casting update for Othello & In Extremis

Globe casting update for Othello & In Extremis

Casting update at The Shakespeare Globe Theatre for Othello & In Extremis

Othello by William Shakespeare, opens 11 May 2007, following previews from 4 May - running to 19 Aug 2007.

Directed by Wilson Milam, cast includes: Eamonn Walker (Othello), Tim McInnerny (Iago) Zawe Ashton (Bianca), Nick Barber (Cassio), Lorraine Burroughs (Emilia), Sam Crane (Roderigo), Nigel Hastings (Montano), Paul Lloyd (Clown), Jonathan Newth (Duke of Venice), Michael O'Hagan (Gratiano), Zoe Tapper (Desdemona), Michael Taibi (Company), Dickon Tyrrell (Lodovico), John Stahl (Brabantio), Che Walker (Company).

Eamonn Walker is best known for his roles in the hit American prison series, Oz, the legal drama, Justice, and the film, Lord of War. Tim McInnerny, is best known for playing Lord Percy and Captain Darling in Blackadder. Tim's career on stage, television and film includes Notting Hill and the BBC spy drama Spooks.

The republic of Venice employs Othello, a self-made man and a Moor, to defend its overseas territories against the Turks. But for all his military success, Othello remains an outsider in the city, an object of racism, envy and mistrust. As the Turkish threat gathers and Venetian forces are despatched to Cyprus, Iago, a junior officer secretly enraged by his lack of promotion, exploits Othello's ambiguous position and ingenuous nature, driving him into a passionate and uncontrollable jealousy. (The production will employ Renaissance staging, costume and music.)

In Extremis by Howard Brenton, opens 18 May, following previews from 15 May - running for a limited two weeks to 26 May 2007

Directed by John Dove, cast includes: Oliver Boot (Abelard), Sally Bretton (Heloise), John Bett (William of Chapeaux ), Eleanor Bron (Helene), Pascale Burgess (Denise), Tas Emiabata (Company), Michael Gould (Alberic), Colin Hurley (Louis VI), Jack Laskey (Bernard of Clairvaux ), William Mannering (Lotholf), Niamh McCann (Berthode), Simon Muller (Cousin), Rhiannon Oliver (Francine), Andrew Vincent (Cousin)

A new spirit of philosophical and religious enquiry is growing in 12th-century France. In its vanguard is the brilliant Peter Abelard. When he starts an affair with his student Heloise, his conservative enemies find just the pretext they need to discredit him. In so doing they start a war of ideas that can only involve that arch-priest of medieval mysticism and austerity, Bernard of Clairvaux.