Deathtrap Tickets

A talented team of actors step into the shoes of Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve and more as Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” makes its way to the West End. The late playwright’s famous work, which was adapted into the 1980s movie featuring the two celebrated screen actors, is a renowned play that earned many admirers when it was staged at the end of the 1970s.

So a talented team of performers were required to bring it back to life at the Noel Coward Theatre, with the Laurence Olivier Award-winning Simon Russell Beale leading a cast that also includes Broadway regulars Jonathan Groff, Estelle Parsons and Terry Beaver, plus National Theatre regulars like Anna Massey and Claire Skinner.

The plot of “Deathtrap” follows Sidney Bruhl (Beale) who has landed on tough times following his recent flops on Broadway. Needing to get his career back on track he is faced with another problem when he begins to suffer from writers’ block and sees an opportunity in the work of one of his ex-students. Clifford Anderson (Groff) has delivered an exciting piece of work to his door and Bruhl decides that he want to pass it off as his own, concocting a plan of lies and murder to bring his plan to fruition. But it is not a solid plan and this dishonest world becomes the mainstay of both writers’ lives.

The late playwright Ira Levin clearly never had to resort to such measures, having enjoyed a successful career right up until his death in 2007. His first stage work was 1956’s “No Time for Sergeants” and over the years he wrote many more until his final play “Cantorial” in 1982. In addition to “Deathtrap”, his most famous works are the 1967 novel “Rosemary’s Baby” and its 1997 sequel “Son of Rosemary”, both of which are favourites of horror literature.

With “Deathtrap”, however, he had his biggest success story on Broadway. Originally staged in 1978 it would go on to earn a nomination for a Tony Award, which would cement its legacy for years to come and pave the way for the West End version that is set to start in August 2010. With a great cast working to bring this classic work back to life, it could not be in better hands.

Deathtrap begins its run at the Noel Coward Theatre on Tuesday 7th September 2010 (with previews from Friday 20th August 2010) and continues to Saturday 22nd January 2011.