Stranger things have happened to Hollywood actor David Harbour, but this could be the most daunting, as he prepares to make his debut on the London stage.
Harbour, who encounters all things weird and wonderful as melancholic police chief Jim Hopper in the Netflix sci-fi horror drama Stranger Things, has signed on to star in the world premiere of American playwright Theresa Rebeck’s play Madhouse, for a 12-week season at the Ambassadors Theatre starting in June.
The show’s a two-hander featuring two men — Daniel, who’s in his 60s; and Michael, who’s in his 40s (presumably the part that Harbour, 46, has agreed to do).
Details about the nature of Rebeck’s play, to be directed by her frequent collaborator Moritz von Stuelpnagel, are sparse, though she has spoken in the past of her work in theatre and television being about ‘a betrayal, and treason and poor behaviour’… which sounds exactly like the kind of material Harbour is attracted to.
The 6ft 2in actor has helped make Chief Hopper one of the most compelling characters on telly. Season four of Stranger Things begins in May and finds Hopper — with head shaved — languishing in a Russian prison cell.
Perhaps, adoptive daughter Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, will come to his rescue?
Stranger things have happened to Hollywood actor David Harbour, but this could be the most daunting, as he prepares to make his debut on the London stage. He is pictured above with wife Lily Allen
Filmmaker Cate Shortland sought Harbour out to play Alexei, the oddball Russian spy and father figure to Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, in Marvel movie Black Widow.
And he has certainly built up his screen presence of late — but his acting background is actually rooted in the theatre. I’ve watched him at New York’s Lincoln Center in Tom Stoppard’s epic, three-part drama The Coast Of Utopia.
And I recall seeing him alongside Al Pacino in two productions: Glengarry Glen Ross and The Merchant Of Venice. He even managed to escape, unscathed, from Kathleen Turner in a production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Harbour will move to London from the home he shares in New York with wife Lily Allen and her two daughters for the run.
Harbour, who encounters all things weird and wonderful as melancholic police chief Jim Hopper in the Netflix sci-fi horror drama Stranger Things, has signed on to star in the world premiere of American playwright Theresa Rebeck’s play Madhouse, for a 12-week season at the Ambassadors Theatre starting in June
Allen made her own West End debut last year in 2.22 A Ghost Story, which this week garnered her a best actress Olivier award nomination.
Once Harbour ends his stint in Madhouse, the Ambassadors will bring down its curtain for several weeks while it undergoes much-needed refurbishment. It’s a beautiful looking house, but the seating and other facilities are in desperate need of updating.
It has become an extremely popular playhouse (see item below), though; and there are productions lining up to rent it.
Rebeck enjoyed success on Broadway with Seminar, which starred Alan Rickman; and she’s written many other plays, in addition to the TV musical series Smash.
Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour and Florence Pugh film a scene for the Marvel film, Black Widow
Bridgerton star is lord of the stage
Monday night’s audience at the second preview of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock was relieved it wasn’t a re-run of Saturday, when actor Taron Egerton fainted.
Thankfully, he got through it unharmed at the Ambassadors Theatre, nursing (as he put it on social media) ‘a slightly sore neck — and a bruised ego’.
Understudy Joel Harper-Jackson was in the house, just in case — as he had been on Saturday, when he had to step in and take over from Egerton, who was back on stage after a ten-year gap.
No mention of the incident was made on Monday, though fellow star Jonathan Bailey seemed to give Egerton an extra warm embrace as they, along with cast mates Jade Anouka and Phil Daniels, took their bows, to a standing ovation.
Fellow star Jonathan Bailey seemed to give Taron Egerton an extra warm embrace as they, along with cast mates Jade Anouka and Phil Daniels, took their bows, to a standing ovation after performing Mike Bartlett’s play Cock on Monday
Monday night’s audience at the second preview of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock was relieved it wasn’t a re-run of Saturday, when actor Taron Egerton (pictured in Rocketman filmed in 2019) fainted
Bartlett’s play, originally staged at the Royal Court in 2009, is about open intimacy and the prevalence of gender labelling.
It’s been revived at a time when discussions of sexual orientation and the shifting definitions of gender are taking up much oxygen, and I found director Marianne Elliott’s searing interpretation illuminating and urgent. This cast is superb — Bailey ferociously so.
The actor won awards for his anxious groom in Elliott’s acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company. But nothing he did then prepares us for the command and stature of his performance here.
The play should by rights extend its run, but is unable to for several reasons. Bailey has projects, including Bridgerton 3 to film; and Egerton, Anouka and Daniels have other commitments, too. But Bailey will return to the stage.
He told me last year that there are several other shows he’s got his eye on. Elliott and her partner Chris Harper might have further plans for him, too.
The actor, who plays Lord Anthony Bridgerton in Netflix’s saucy smash hit, told me viewers are going to be ‘kicked back to the ground, and then swept off their feet again in a completely different manner’ with Bridgerton 2, which runs on Netflix from March 25.
Bailey explained that future shows will follow his screen siblings; and that he intends ‘to be there at every wedding, and every birth . . .I’ll be there with the family as long as the siblings and the mother need me’.
The actor, who plays Lord Anthony Bridgerton in Netflix’s saucy smash hit, told me viewers are going to be ‘kicked back to the ground, and then swept off their feet again in a completely different manner’ with Bridgerton 2, which runs on Netflix from March 25
Bailey explained that future shows will follow his screen siblings; and that he intends ‘to be there at every wedding, and every birth . . .I’ll be there with the family as long as the siblings and the mother need me’
