This week Edward Fox premieres in Trollope in Barsetshire, devised and directed by Richard Digby Day, artistic director of Fordham’s London Dramatic Academy.
Edward Fox, the eminent British actor, brings to life the author and the world of Anthony Trollope in a one-man performance drawn from extracts of the Barchester Chronicles and from An Autobiography.
Anthony Trollope stands out as a hugely popular novelist, one of the greatest of the Victorian era, an author invested with a wonderful gift for words. For six of his novels he invented Barsetshire, both a county and a town and he filled this world with an astonishing range of characters from Dr. Harding, the gentle Warden, to Mrs. Proudie, the domineering Bishop’s wife. Like all truly celebrated novelists, Trollope deals with conditions of life that touch men and women, against the background of country life and the complexities, plots and counter-plots of the cathedral close. Humane, witty and well-observed Edward Fox wields his magic to bring many of these much-loved characters to life. The extracts from the novels are joined together with parts of Trollope’s controversial autobiography published a year after his death in 1883. This book, unlike the novels, is as famous for what it leaves out as for its plain spoken directness.
This piece is the result of a collaboration between Richard Digby Day and Edward Fox, which began five years ago. The play opened in 2008 and was widely performed again in 2010, its success resulting in the current run for six weeks in the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, London. Throughout his long career, Digby Day has made many other one person performance pieces for a variety of famous British actors, including Honor Blackman and Geraldine McEwan. Digby Day is the Artistic Director of Fordham University’s London Dramatic Academy, a challenging, practical study abroad program focusing on British theatre.
POST-SHOW DISCUSSION
There will be a post-show discussion at the Riverside Studios with Edward Fox and Richard Digby Day on Fridays February 25 and Friday March 25.
TICKETS and INFORMATION
February 22 to April 2, 2011
Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9RL
Box Office: 020 8237 1111 www.riversidestudios.co.uk
£15 – £25
