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For fans of the Bard, it doesn’t get much better than this: Sigourney Weaver will make her West End debut playing Prospero in the Tempest as part of a newly announced season of Shakespeare set to open in the West End.
Tom Hiddleston will then star opposite Hayley Atwell in a new production of Much Ado About Nothing.
The two productions, the first opening in December and the second in February, will both run at the West End’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane and will both be directed by award-winning theatre director Jamie Lloyd.
“It is such an honour to be invited by Andrew Lloyd Webber to be the first company to present Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in decades. I could not be more thrilled to welcome three-time Academy Award nominated and BAFTA and Golden Globe winning actress, Sigourney Weaver – an international icon of stage and screen – to London,” said Lloyd.
“Then to collaborate again with two of the greatest actors of their generation – Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell – on one of Shakespeare’s wittiest and most tender comedies is a dream come true.”
Explaining his decision to put on the two plays, Andrew Lloyd Webber said: “When I was nine years old I was taken to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane to see Peter Brook's legendary production of The Tempest with John Gielgud as Prospero. It made a profound impression on me. At the final performance Gielgud broke Prospero's staff and pronounced that Shakespeare would never again be performed at the Theatre Royal as it would be ‘lost to musicals’.”
“Ever since I owned the Theatre Royal I have been determined to prove him wrong. It is therefore a massive joy that Jamie Lloyd is bringing back Shakespeare to the Lane and even more wonderful that the first of two Shakespeare plays will be The Tempest.”
The Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which is owned and operated by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s LW Theatres, reopened in July 2021 after years of extensive renovations. Since August 27 that year, the theatre has been the home of Frozen The Musical, which is closing its doors on September 8.
Legendary movie star Weaver, who has starred in the Alien and Avatar franchises, has acted in dozens of stage plays over the years, including in The Merchant of Venice in an off-Broadway production in 1986, in a one-off New York performance of AR Gurney’s Pulitzer-prize nominated play Love Letters in 2007, and more recently playing herself in The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts in New York in 2019. Yet she has never performed in the West End before.
She said: “I am delighted to be making my West End debut in Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by the brilliant Jamie Lloyd – and to do so in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s beautiful and historic Theatre Royal Drury Lane is an extraordinary opportunity.”
Hiddleston, who is best-known for playing Avengers villain Loki, said, “Working with Jamie Lloyd on Harold Pinter’s Betrayal was one of the most fulfilling and meaningful experiences of my performing life. I could not be more thrilled to have been given the opportunity to collaborate with him again, this time on one of Shakespeare’s most warm-hearted and joyful plays: Much Ado About Nothing.”
Hiddleston’s collaboration with Lloyd on Betrayal transferred to Broadway, the actor’s debut on the Great White Way, and he was nominated for a Tony award.
Acclaimed theatre British director Lloyd has worked on a number of celebration productions over the last several years, including The Seagull starring Emilia Clarke, A Doll's House starring Jessica Chastain and Cyrano de Bergerac with James McAvoy (which was nominated for five Olivier awards).
His 2023 West End revival of musical Sunset Boulevard, which starred Nicole Scherzinger, won seven Olivier Awards. His latest project, a more experimental adaptation of Romeo and Juliet starring Tom Holland, picked up mixed reviews.
General sale tickets for The Tempest will go on sale on Wednesday 7 August at 11am; the general sale date for Much Ado About Nothing tickets has not yet been announced. Find out more details about priority booking at thejamielloydcompany.com and lwtheatres.co.uk. Further details about cast and crews are set to follow soon.
