The Second Mrs Tanqueray

Rose Production

Laura Michelle Kelly and James Wilby

By Arthur W Pinero
Directed by Stephen Unwin

Thu 27 Sep to Sat 27 Oct

★★★★ The Times
★★★★ Evening Standard
★★★★ The Independent
★★★★ The Daily Telegraph
★★★★ Onestoparts.com
★★★★ The Huffington Post
★★★★ The Lady

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About

Arthur W. Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray was the greatest commercial success of the Victorian theatre. Sexy, dramatic, funny and very moving, the Daily Telegraph described this theatrical treasure as the play ‘that changed British theatre forever’.

When Aubrey Tanqueray marries for the second time, he knows that his new wife, Paula, is a ‘woman with a past’. But he has no idea how that past will catch up with him in the end.

The cast includes Olivier award-winning Laura Michelle Kelly in the title role. Laura originated the role of Mary Poppins in the Walt Disney & Cameron Mackintosh blockbuster musical, and played Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings. In Speed-the-Plow at the Old Vic in 2008, she starred alongside Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum, confirming her as one of the most exciting and versatile actresses of her generation. Her films include the role of Elspeth Dickens in Goddess with Ronan Keating and Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp.

James Wilby (Aubrey Tanqueray) won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival (with Hugh Grant) for his title role in Maurice. His numerous appearances on screen include A Handful of Dust, Howard’s End with Anthony Hopkins, Regeneration and Gosford Park.

The cast also includes Joseph Alessi, Daniel Goode, Adam Jackson-Smith, David Mara, David Whitworth, Rona Morison, Sally Tatum and Jessica Turner; find out more about them in our Cast and Creatives tab.

Poster image: Max Dodson, rehearsal shots: Simon Annand

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Reviews

Arthur Wing Pinero is about to retake the London stage

★★★★ Evening Standard

A genuinely complex study of tricky relationships

★★★★ The Times

The play is fascinating

The Stage

James Wilby is perfect as a defiant, blustering Aubrey... Laura Michelle Kelly takes on the title role with skill and style.

The London Magazine

this is a solid and welcome revival of an intriguingly conflicted play

Britishtheatreguide.info

All praise to Stephen Unwin for taking on this important play, and all credit to his team for creating such an engaging production.

★★★★ Onestoparts.com

Daniel Goode and Sally Tatum give a delectably funny turn

★★★★ The Independent

The stage, weighed down with period furniture, nevertheless seems to float in the black space around it: the illusion of Victorian solidity conjured to perfection

★★★★ The Daily Telegraph

Laura Michelle Kelly excels

★★★★ The Lady Magazine

Cast & creatives

We're delighted to announce that the fabulous Laura Michelle Kelly will take the title role, and James Wilby will play her husband in Arthur W Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray.

Arthur W Pinero

Born on May 24, 1855, in London, Arthur Wing Pinero studied law before turning to the theatre at the age of 19 to pursue a career as an actor. He served a five year apprenticeship with Sir Henry Irving's company, during which time he took up writing. His first major success, The Magistrate (1885), is a farce about a woman named Agatha who has lied about her age in order to marry her second husband, an honest magistrate. But Pinero was not happy writing only farces. One of his early attempts at tragedy was The Profligate (1887) in which a man takes poison after he realizes that his marriage has failed. Unfortunately for Pinero, the public was not ready for such a gloomy ending, and he was forced to rewrite it, resulting in a much happier outcome. In the years that followed, however, English theatre-goers were exposed to the likes of social dramatists such as Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw. Feeling that the public was now ready to receive his tragic offerings, Pinero composed The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893). Although the play raised protests from victorian conservatives because of its subject matter, it scored a box-office hit and brought Pinero the recognition he desired as a serious social dramatist.

Other plays include The Schoolmistress (1886), Dandy Dick (1887), Sweet Lavender (1888), The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895), Trelawny of the Wells (1898), The Gay Lord Quex (1899), Iris (1901), and Mid-Channel (1909). He died on November 23, 1934, in London.

CAST

	Cayley Drummle Joseph Alessi Theatre credits include: Wonderful Town (Royal Exchange/Hallé Orchestra/Lowry, Manchester and UK Tour), Tartuffe (Liverpool Playhouse/ETT and UK Tour), Brief Encounter (Kneehigh, UK and USA Tours and Broadway), The Drowsy Chaperone (Novello), Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and The Tempest (RSC and Novello), The Comedy of Errors (RSC, Barbican and World Tour), Jerusalem (WYP), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Regent's Park),The Play Wot I Wrote (National Tour), The Front Page, Tovarich and Henry VIII (Chichester), Light (Theatre de Complicite, Almeida and UK Tour), Animal Crackers (Royal Exchange, Barbican and Lyric West End), The Taming of the Shrew, A View from the Bridge, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Exchange). Film credits include: The Other Woman, Family Business, Bridget Jones's Diary, London Kills Me, The Institute Benjamenta and Chaplin.
	Sir George Orreyed & Gordon Jayne MD Daniel Goode Previously seen at the Rose in Treasure Island and A Christmas Carol. Other theatre includes: Chicago (Cambridge Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew, The Phoenician Women, Julius Caesar (RSC), The Taming of the Shrew (Wilton’s Music Hall), Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Don Juan, Mother Courage and Her Children (English Touring Theatre), Noel and Gertie (Salisbury), Sympathetic Magic (The Steam Industry), Hamlet (Peter Hall Company), Brontë (Farnham and tour), Ten Little Indians (Vienna), Blue Murder (Manchester Library Theatre), Oscar (Kings Head), The Government Inspector, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wings, Private Lives (Harrogate). Film Includes: Queen’s Evidence, Beyond Death, Gateway to Heaven, Another Life, Shadowlands. Television includes: Hustle, The Bill. Radio Includes: Poetry Please, The Nutcracker, The Making of Ivan the Terrible, Giselle, Hans Christian Anderson, Beautiful Henry, The Page of Wands (Radio 4), The Schumann Celebrations (Radio 3).
	Captain Hugh Ardale Adam Jackson-Smith Theatre includes: The Illusion (Southwark Playhouse); The Adventure (Bad Physics & Hightide Festival Theatre); The Phoenix of Madrid, Iphigenia, and The Surprise of Love (Theatre Royal Bath); Enter a Gentleman (Arcola - Miniaturists 30); WLTM (Old Vic, Time Warner Ignite); Enduring Voices: The 24 Hour Plays 2008 and On The Middle Day (The Old Vic); The Citadel and Being God's Probation Officer (Ten in a Bed Theatre); It’s My Party (Bite Sized at Theatre 503). Film includes: The Followed and Outbreak.
	Frank Misquith QC, MP David Mara Previously seen at the Rose in Treasure Island. Other theatre includes: Othello (Donmar Warehouse) Peapickers (Eastern Angles) Pericles (Cardboard Citizens/RSC) The Tempest (Sheffield Crucible and London Old Vic) King John, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors and La Lupa (RSC) As You Like It and Antony & Cleopatra (English Shakespeare Company). Television, film and radio includes: Doctors, Casualty, Murder in Mind, Taggart, Memorabilis and Listen Against, Mob Rule.
	Morse David Whitworth Theatre credits include: London Assurance (National Theatre), Vieux Carre (King’s Head), Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), The Thunderbolt, Mary Goes First, Inspector, Double Double, Trifles and King Lear (Orange Tree, Richmond), Wuthering Heights (Birmingham Repertory & Tour), As You Like It (Nottingham Playhouse), The Mousetrap (St Martin’s Theatre, West End) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Open Air Theatre and Middle Eastern Tour). Television and film credits include: Love’s Kitchen, The Bill, Nicholas Nickleby and Little Dorritt.
	Paula Tanqueray Laura Michelle Kelly Theatre includes: The King & I (St Louis MUNY), Mary Poppins (The New Amsterdam Theatre, NY and Prince Edward Theatre, London), Speed-The-Plow (The Old Vic), The Lord Of The Rings (Kevin Wallace Ltd), Fiddler On The Roof (101 Prods Broadway), My Fair Lady (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), Mamma Mia (The Palace Theatre), Les Miserables (The Palace Theatre), Peter Pan (Royal Festival Hall), Whistle Down The Wind (The Aldwych Theatre), and Beauty And The Beast (The Dominion Theatre). Film and Television includes: Goddess.com, Sweeney Todd and Miss Marple - Nemesis.
	Aubrey Tanqueray James Wilby James Wilby plays the role of Aubrey Tanqueray. James won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival (with Hugh Grant) for his title role in the 1987 Merchant Ivory film, Maurice, and his numerous appearances on screen include A Handful of Dust, Howard’s End, Regeneration and Gosford Park.
	Ellean Tanqueray Rona Morison Rona graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2011. Theatre credits Include: Crave and Illusion (Actors Touring Company). Film Credits Include: Love Bite (West End Films).
	Mabel Orreyed Sally Tatum Sally has recently appeared in an episode of Episodes directed by Jim Field-Smith and has been seen in This Happy Breed, directed by Stephen Unwin and Red Light Winter, directed by Richard Beecham both at the Theatre Royal Bath. Other theatre credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream on tour for Shakespeare's Globe, directed by Raz Shaw; Gaslight at the Old Vic, directed by Peter Gill; To Kill A Mocking Bird for Birmingham Rep/West Yorkshire Playhouse, directed by Michael Buffong and As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Solstice all for the RSC. TV credits include Consuming Passions for BBC4; Trial And Retribution for La Plante; Miss Austen Regrets for BBC; The Bill for Talkback Thames and Mary Whitehouse for Wall To Wall.
	Mrs Cortelyon Jessica Turner Theatre includes: Speer, White Chameleon, The Beaux’s Stratagem, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Neaptide, Martine, Animal Farm, and The Fawn (The National Theatre), Lettice and Lovage (Watermill), Persuasion (Salisbury Playhouse), Wallenstein and The Silver King (Chichester), Waste (Almeida), Present Laughter (Theatre Royal Bath), Girl in the Goldfish Bowl (Crucible Sheffield), Mary Stuart and Oedipus (Nuffield Southampton), What You Get and What You Expect (Lyric Hammersmith), Cuckoos (The Barbican And Bath), King Lear (The Old Vic And Tour) and Good (Donmar Warehouse). Television and Film includes: Midsomer Murders, Law And Order Uk, New Tricks, Doctors, Heartbeat, Tess Of The D’urbevilles, 10 Days To War, Waking The Dead, The Line Of Beauty, Spooks, The Cazalets, The Ambassador, The Mill On The Floss, Dr Finlay, Deeply and The Murder Of Princess Diana.

Creatives

Director     Stephen Unwin
Set Designer    Paul Wills
Costume Designer   Mark Bouman
Lighting Designer    Mike Gunning
Music     Corin Buckeridge
Sound Design    David Starmer
Casting Director    Ginny Schiller
Assistant Director   Mary-Clare O’Neill

Production Manager   Wayne Parry
Wardrobe Supervisor   Tracey Stiles
CSM      Kate McDowell
DSM      Rebecca Carnell
ASM      Olly Clarke
Props     Jo Maund
Wardrobe Manager   Emily Moore
Assistant Production Manager Matthew Robinson

Follow the cast and the creative process on twitter with the hashtag #2ndMrsTanqueray

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