Richard Briers to star in London Assurance
Recently Michael Ball introduced Richard Briers on his BBC Radio 2 show by saying “I absolutely love this guy. He’s a legend. He’s an icon.”
Currently Richard Briers is rehearsing for the very funny play London Assurance — an instant hit in 1841 for the Dublin actor and writer Dion Boucicault — directed by Nicholas Hytner. This will require big hammy performances in the Restoration comedy manner, with double-takes and grimaces, asides and winks. Briers will be splendid as the timid, barmy old Mr Adolphus Spanker, thoroughly upstaged by his horsey wife, Lady Gay Spanker (Fiona Shaw in jodhpurs), who flirts merrily with the foppish and selfdeluding Sir Harcourt Courtly (Simon Russell Beale).
Tickets for London Assurance, which opens in London today (2nd March) at the Olivier Theatre, National Theatre are available from London Assurance Theatre Tickets.
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Richard Briers is, as one would expect, wonderful as the bumbling Mr Spanker and achieves at least one laugh per line! The Olivier Theatre, however, is too large for this play – it’s sheer size slows the play down and makes it lose its intimacy.