GAME Of Thrones star Jonathan Pryce returns to Liverpool this summer to play one of Shakespeare’s most infamous characters - and kickstarting a major world tour.
The veteran Everyman actor-director will take on the role of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the Liverpool Playhouse in June, directed by Jonathan Munby.
It’s part of a two-handed collaboration, between Shakespeare’s Globe and the Playhouse & Everyman organisation, which will also see a production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Hope Street.
The occasion: 2016 is the Bard’s 400th anniversary year.
Nick Bagnall, the Everyman and Playhouse associate director, will direct The Two Gentlemen of Verona - or “Two Gents” to those in Theartre. It will play a number of venues - castles and the like - in Britain and abroad before finishing at the Everyman in October.
Everyman stalwart Jonathan Pryce in his critically acclaimed role of ShylockThe two plays form part of the Globe’s first season under new artistic director Emma Rice who formerly ran the Kneehigh theatre company.
Bagnall, described as one of “a select number of directors” working with Globe during its big year, said: “It is such an honour to be directing Two Gents in Emma Rice’s first season at the Globe. I have admired and been amazed by her work from afar for so many years so to be amongst such an exciting line up of directors in her Wonder Season is a true highlight of my career so far. I can’t wait to get to work on reimagining this most wonderful of plays.”
Pryce, a member of the Everyman rep in the 1970s, alongside the likes of Julie Walters, Matthew Kelly, Bill Nighy and Pete Postlethwaite, was artistic director of the theatre during the 1974/5 season. Last seen on stage in Liverpool in The Caretaker, in 2009, Shylock is a role he has already won critical acclaim for - having played it in a Globe production last year.
Tickets for The Merchant of Venice will go on sale on Tuesday 1 March and The Two Gentlemen of Verona will be on sale from Wednesday 1 June.
