Two of Britain's greatest living stage actors, Michael Gambon and Alex Jennings, will take the lead roles this autumn in Alan Bennett's new play The Habit of Art, the National Theatre announced today.
Gambon returns to the National for the first time in four years and will play the poet WH Auden in an imagined meeting with his former artistic collaborator Benjamin Britten, to be played by Jennings.
The words "much-anticipated" are artistic cliches, but in Bennett's case they ring true. There is genuine excitement about his new play – his first since The History Boys became such a global success, on stage and screen, in 2004.
The National today said The Habit of Art would be "as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music", and that it will look at "the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography". Directed by Nicholas Hytner will be a cast including Frances de la Tour, Adrian Scarborough, John Heffernan, Stephen Wight and Elliot Levey.
One of the UK's most original and distinctive directors, Katie Mitchell will direct two plays in the National's winter season – and they could not be more different. The first of the two will be Ferdinand Bruckner's rampantly sexual Pains of Youth, in a new version by Martin Crimp. Set in Vienna, 1923, with six disgruntled and promiscuous medical students living it up with sex, drinking and spying, the play previews from 21 October 2009.
Then, over Christmas, Mitchell will adapt Dr Seuss's children's classic The Cat in the Hat. Aimed at children between three and six, it will be performed in the Cottesloe space in the morning and afternoon, before transferring to London's Young Vic on 28 January 2010.
Following the successful screening of Phèdre, with Helen Mirren, at cinemas across the world, the National is to continue its NT Live initiative. Marianne Elliott's critically acclaimed production of All's Well that Ends Well will be screened on 1 October 2009, and Mark Ravenhill's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel Nation will be beamed to some 200 venues on 30 January 2010.
Other highlights from the winter programme include the National Theatre debut of the award-winning US actor John Lithgow, probably still best-known for his role in TV sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. Lithgow will perform a double bill of stories: Uncle Fred Flits by PG Wodehouse and Haircut by Ring Lardner, at the Lyttelton on 19 and 26 October 2009.
