Rory Bremner to make dramatic debut during Theatre Royal Bath summer season

This year's Summer Season at the Theatre Royal Bath features the work of five acclaimed directors in four exceptional new productions featuring a host of the UK's favourite actors.

Rory Bremner makes his drama debut alongside Patricia Hodge, Caroline Quentin in Noël Coward's Relative Values, directed by Trevor Nunn.

Then Charity Wakefield, Jamie Parker and David Troughton star in Bernard Shaw's Candida, directed by Simon Godwin while David Haig and Paul Shelley star in Shakespeare's King Lear directed by Lucy Bailey. Finally Richard McCabe stars in John Mortimer's adaptation of A Little Hotel On The Side directed by Lindsay Posner and Cal McCrystal.

Bath's Summer Season opens with one of Noël Coward's most popular comedies Relative Values appearing at the Theatre Royal from Wednesday June 12 to Saturday June 29. Set in the early 1950s, Relative Values uses an uproarious culture clash between the glittering world of Hollywood and the stiff upper lip of the English aristocracy to satirise snobbery.

Patricia Hodge stars as the Countess of Marshwood. Her extensive stage work ranges from Dandy Dick and His Dark Materials to Money at the National Theatre, for which she won an Olivier Award. Her television credits include The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.

Rory Bremner makes his drama debut as Crestwell. One of the UK's leading impressionists and comedians, he is well known on television for the award-winning Rory Bremner… Who Else? and Bremner, Bird and Fortune. His many screen credits also include Strictly Come Dancing, Kingdom, You Me and It and Spitting Image.

Trevor Nunn is one of the UK's leading theatre, film and television directors. He has been artistic director of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.

The second production of the season is Bernard Shaw's appearing at the Theatre Royal Bath from Wednesday July 3 to Saturday July 20. Charity Wakefield stars in the title role alongside Jamie Parker and David Troughton, directed by Simon Godwin.

In this exuberant romantic comedy, Shaw's own favourite, questions of love and loyalty are explored in a brilliant fusion of wit, passion and politics.

Charity Wakefield's television credits include the BBC's Sense and Sensibility and Casualty 1909. On stage she has appeared in The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre, and last played the Theatre Royal Bath in The Circle in 2008. Jamie Parker starred in the original stage production of The History Boys and in the BBC film; he returns to Bath after starring in Proof at the Theatre Royal earlier this year.

Director Simon Godwin is an associate director of London's Royal Court Theatre, where he was nominated for an Evening Standard Award in 2010 for his production of Nick Payne's Wanderlust.

The season continues with a new production of Shakespeare's King Lear starring David Haig and appearing at the Theatre Royal from Thursday, July 25 to Saturday, August 10. Directed by Lucy Bailey, this production is designed by William Dudley, one of the UK's most prolific and revered theatre designers and winner of seven Olivier Awards.

Playing King Lear, the ultimate tragic monarch, is the pinnacle of every actor's career. David Haig returns to the Theatre Royal to take on the greatest role in Shakespeare's canon after receiving ecstatic reviews for his towering performance as George III in The Madness of George III in 2011, both in Bath and subsequently in the West End.

Lucy Bailey is one of the UK's most exciting directors. She has worked on many occasions with Shakespeare's Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company for whom her recent productions have included The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter's Tale.

The final production of the Summer Season is A Little Hotel On The Side by Georges Feydeau and Maurice Désvallières. Directed by Lindsay Posner and Cal McCrystal, this hilarious staging adapted by John Mortimer appears at the Theatre Royal Bath from Thursday August 15 to Saturday August 31. This side-splitting work from the supreme master of traditional farce contains all the classic ingredients – thwarted passion, spiralling panic and a seedy hotel where the corridors see more action than the beds – in a completely hilarious evening of mistaken identities and sexual innuendo.

Richard McCabe, playing Monsieur Pinglet, comes to Bath direct from his Olivier Award-winning role as Harold Wilson in one of the West End's biggest hits of recent years, The Audience, opposite Dame Helen Mirren.

A Little Hotel on the Side will be directed by one of the UK's greatest directors of comedy, Lindsay Posner, whose productions of Abigail's Party and Noises Off were huge West End successes in 2012, both of which played Bath.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.