Original Theatre to present tour of Shomit Dutta’s Stumped starring Stephen Tompkinson and Andrew Lancel

Original Theatre will present the stage premiere of Shomit Dutta’s Stumped on tour from May.

With a game of cricket and two of the greatest playwrights at its heart, the production will visit Theatre Royal Bath (23 – 27 May), Cambridge Arts Theatre (5 – 10 June) and Hampstead Theatre (16 June – 22 July).

Stephen Tompkinson (Brassed Off, Drop The Dead Donkey, DCI Banks, Wild at Heart) will star as Samuel Beckett and and Andrew Lancel (Coronation Street, The Bill) as Harold Pinter in the new play. The pair reprise their roles from a shorter digital version of the play which Original Theatre streamed online last year.

The production is directed by Guy Unsworth, with set and costume design by David Woodhead.

Before Samuel Beckett became the playwright universally known for Waiting for Godot, he was a cricketer. He is still the only Nobel prize-winner to feature in the pages of Wisden as a first-class player.

His friend and fellow Nobel prize-winner, Harold Pinter, whose best-known works include The Birthday Party and Betrayal, described cricket as ‘the greatest thing that God created on earth’.

Stumped explores what the friendship between these two playwrights may have looked like.

Original Theatre’s Artistic Director Alastair Whatley said: “I’m delighted that Shomit Dutta’s new play Stumped will make the transition from a digital to live performance with a short tour and then a run at London’s Hampstead Theatre. Hampstead is just a short hop from Lord’s cricket ground where the show began its life last year. This once again highlights the potential for digital work to seed and feed live performance. After the success of our digital production, I cannot wait to finally see the show in front of live audiences in Bath, Cambridge and London.”

For more information, visit originaltheatre.com