Shameless star to play King Lear in Manchester theatre return

Ian YoungsCulture reporterGetty ImagesDavid Threlfall appeared in seven exhibits on the Royal Alternate within the Eighties and 90sActor David Threlfall, finest recognized for enjoying the feckless Frank Gallagher in Channel 4’s Shameless, is to deal with one in all Shakespeare’s best roles, King Lear, when he returns to the stage in his dwelling metropolis of Manchester subsequent yr.Threlfall, 71, will tackle the Bard’s troubled monarch for the fiftieth anniversary of the Royal Alternate theatre in 2026.He was an everyday on the venue within the Eighties and 90s, enjoying roles together with Macbeth, however reportedly fell out with a creative director over plans to seem in Uncle Vanya for its twenty fifth anniversary.The Royal Alternate’s fiftieth anniversary season will open with Johnny Vegas, Lucy Beaumont and Shobna Gulati starring in Jim Cartwright’s 1986 play Highway.That present will see one other former Royal Alternate common, Sir Tom Courtenay, 88, additionally return for his seventeenth position – albeit in a pre-recorded phase on display.Getty ImagesPlays have been staged in a theatre module contained in the historic Royal Alternate constructing since 1976Threlfall was as soon as one of many venue’s main males and its affiliate creative director, however hasn’t carried out there since 1999.He went on to star in Shameless from 2004 to 2013 in addition to TV’s What Stays, Code of a Killer and Nightsleeper.On stage, he received an Olivier Award within the West Finish in 1980 and has two Tony nominations on Broadway. He has appeared in King Lear earlier than, as Edgar reverse Sir Laurence Olivier in a TV model in 1983 – filmed in Granada TV’s Manchester studio.His return to town within the title position shall be seen in September and October 2026.Troubled few yearsThe Royal Alternate’s anniversary season will even embrace the premiere of Even These Issues by Rory Mullarkey, set throughout three intervals in Manchester’s historical past, together with probably the most dramatic days within the metropolis’s and the theatre’s historical past, when it was broken by an IRA bomb in 1996.There will even be a premiere for the winner of this yr’s Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Shooters by Tolu Okanlawon, about real-life African-American photojournalist Gordon Parks; plus a manufacturing of Tony-winning musical Enjoyable Residence; and revivals of Noel Coward’s Non-public Lives and Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night time Music.Creative director Selina Cartmell stated the season would “renew our dedication to being a world-class theatre right here within the coronary heart of Manchester and a creative engine-room for expertise improvement within the North”.The Royal Alternate receives the very best Arts Council England funding of any theatre after the Nationwide Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Firm, and is hoping to recapture former glories after a troubled few years.It was hit arduous by the pandemic and was on the centre of a censorship row final yr when a manufacturing of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night time’s Dream was cancelled, resulting in the resignation of the theatre’s chief government.