Measure for Measure
From Left to Right:
Matt Radford – Angelo / Claudio / Pompey
Elizabeth Hurran – Isabella / Juliet / Mistress Overdone / Abhorson
John Nettleton – Escalus / Provost / Sister Francisca / Justice
Anna Northam – Lucio / Elbow / Mariana
Stuart Fox – Duke Vincentio / Froth / Barnardine
Synopsis
Mysteriously and without explaining his reasons, the Duke of Vienna leaves his city, appointing Angelo as his deputy. Order in the city has suffered from years of lax enforcement of the laws. Angelo, zealous and strict, is the ideal person to reassert the rule of law. The Duke disguises himself as a friar in order to watch what happens. Angelo closes down the brothels and condemns to death Claudio for getting his fiancée Juliet pregnant. Claudio's sister, Isabella, who is just entering a convent as a novitiate, preparing to become a nun, hears the news from Claudio's friend Lucio and rushes to plead for her brother's life. Angelo is moved by her pleas in a way that neither she nor he had expected: he will pardon Claudio if Isabella will have sex with him. Isabella is horrified. She tells her jailed brother of Angelo's proposition and is overheard by the Duke in his friar's disguise who starts a plot to save Claudio and trap Angelo.
The 'friar' persuades Isabella to pretend to agree to Angelo's offer; when the moment comes, Mariana, a young woman once engaged to and then rejected by Angelo, takes Isabella's place. However, Angelo orders that Claudio should be executed anyway. The 'friar', without telling Isabella of his plan, persuades the Provost to execute another condemned man, Barnardine, in Claudio's place. When Barnardine inconveniently refuses to be executed the Provost sends the head of a dead pirate who looks similar enough to Claudio. The 'friar' abandons his disguise and the Duke returns to Vienna.
As the Duke arrives back to take over rule again, Isabella charges Angelo with his abuse of power. The Duke hands the investigation over to Angelo and leaves. Cornered, Angelo attempts to discredit Isabella. When the Duke reveals himself as the friar, he condemns Angelo to death. Mariana pleads for Angelo's life and the Duke orders that Angelo marry Mariana. Claudio is revealed to be alive and the Duke ties up loose ends as neatly as he can by proposing marriage to Isabella.
John
Nettleton trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and
first appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon
in 1952. After several years in repertory theatre and in many West End plays,
he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and spent the next six years
playing leading character parts with them. His earlier tour work has taken
him through Britain, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the Middle
East, and his film work has brought him to France, Spain, Ireland, and Pakistan.
His notable theater roles include Polonius and the Gravedigger in Derek Jacobi's
Hamlet (at the Old Vic Theatre in London), Gonzalo in The Tempest (also for
Derek Jacobi), and Mr. Kipps, the leading role in The Woman in Black, which
he has performed 850 times. He has also appeared as the Duke of York in a
recent recording of Richard II. His many television roles include parts in
Rumpole of the Bailey, Elizabeth R, Upstairs, Downstairs, Yes Minister, Brideshead
Revisited, East of Ipswich, The Flame Trees of Thika, The Tempest, and many
others. His film credits include A Man For All Seasons, And Soon the Darkness,
Black Beauty, American Friends, and Jinnah. In 1954 he married his wife, actress
Deirdre Doone, and they have now been married for almost 50 years. They have
three daughters, five grandchildren, and two pedigree cats (Kipps and Bentley).
This is his first tour with Actors From The London Stage.
Anna
Northam trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Her first theater job was Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the Northcott
Theatre, Exeter, where she then stayed for over two years, taking such roles
as Edith in Blithe Spirit, Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, Helena in A Midsummer
Night's Dream, Mary in Jane Austen's Persuasion and Gwendolen in The Importance
of Being Earnest. After an innocent comment by an elderly theater-goer who
cornered her in the street and not so quietly inquired "Are you STILL
here?" she thought she would return to the "Big Smoke"(i.e.
London). Other theater credits include The Three Musketeers, Tale of Two Cities,
The Ruffian on the Stair, The Children's Hour, Hobson's Choice, An Evening
with Gary Lineker, The House of Bernarda Alba and Antigone . Her Shakesperean
roles have also included Viola in Twelfth Night, Sebastian in The Tempest,
Ophelia in Hamlet, the porter in Macbeth, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and
Octavia in Antony and Cleopatra. In addition to her role as Mary Elgin in
Daughters of Britannia on radio, she appeared in the film Bring Me the Head
of Mavis Davis (directed by John Henderson) and on television in Midsomer
Murders, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, and An Awfully Big Adventure. This
is her first tour with Actors From The London Stage.
Elizabeth
Hurran graduated from Cambridge University where she studied English
and was a member of the Footlights. She then went on to train at Bristol Old
Vic Theatre School on a three-year acting course. Her roles while there have
included Viola in Twelfth Night, Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer,
and Donna Estafana in The Three Musketeers. Since graduating in 1999, she
has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Love in the Wood, King
John, Jubilee and Madness in Valencia. While at the RSC she organized a two
week fringe event with over twenty plays and appeared as Theresa in The Memory
of Water. Other fringe theatre work includes Summer in the City, Gringos (both
for Lifetime Theatre), and a UK tour earlier this year of a two hander The
Nest. Her film and television credits include Crush, Second Sight (BBC) and,
most recently, she played the role of Emily Bronte for the BBC in In Search
of the Brontes, directed by Samira Osman. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Touchstone,
a theatre company that specializes in working with Shakespeare's first folio
and Shakespeare based education work for young people, including those with
learning or educational difficulties. This is her first tour with Actors From
The London Stage.
Matthew
Radford studied English at Exeter University. His most recent theater
credits include the Oberon and Theseus double in A Midsummer Night's Dream
for the Radford College of Performing Arts, and the role of Matthew in Misconceptions
at the Bolton Octagon, which earned him a nomination for a Manchester Evening
Standard Best Actor award. He adapted and directed Shakespeare's Venus and
Adonis for the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, and has played the roles of Dumaine
in All's Well That Ends Well, the title role in Macbeth, Clarence and Queen
Elizabeth in Richard III, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, and Apemantus in Timon
of Athens. At the Citizen's Theatre, he has appeared in The Millionairess,
Major Barbara, Summer Lightning, One For the Road, and Other Places. Other
roles include Oliver Menzies in Our Boys (winner of Best Acting Company, London
Fringe Awards), Jack Maitland in The Maitlands, and Arthur Donnithorne in
Adam Bede. On film, he has appeared in Enchanted April, Greenwich Mean Time,
and Faith. His television credits include Doctors, Darwin, Brookside, The
New Adventures of Robin Hood, Highlander, The Grand, A Class Act, and Sisters.
In his first Actors From The London Stage tour, fall 1999's Twelfth Night,
he played Orsino, Feste, and Fabian. He followed this with a subsequent tour
of A Midsummer Night's Dream, fall 2001, in which he played Oberon, Lysander,
Flute and, most proudly, Cobweb. This is his third tour with Actors From The
London Stage.
Stuart
Fox began his career at the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, where he appeared
in St. Joan of the Stockyards, Camino Real, Coriolanus, Indians, Romeo and
Juliet, The Government Inspector, The Duchess of Malfi and The de Sade Show.
He has performed extensively at the Bristol Old Vic, where some of his roles
have included Yasha in The Cherry Orchard, Gontran in The Birdwatcher, Cornwall
in King Lear, Rosencrantz in Hamlet, and Eric in An Inspector Calls. He has
worked extensively with the Orange Tree Theatre, appearing in Three Sisters,
Have You Anything To Declare?, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Way of the
World, Sperm Wars, Bodies, What the Heart Feels, Universal Language, and The
Gamehunter. On the West End stage he has appeared in The Normal Heart (Albery),
Filumena Marturano (Lyric), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Latchmere/Fortune).
He has performed on the London Fringe in plays such as Into Europe, Police,
Made in England, A Doll's House, The Third and Final Round, The Faerie Queen,
Queen Elizabeth Hall and Grafters. His film credits include Return of the
Jedi, Sid and Nancy, Circle of Deceit, Girls Night and The Gospel of John.
This is his first tour with Actors From The London Stage.