A new play by Jack Thorne lays bare the distortion of celebrity in the rehearsal room. Sam Mendes directs Johnny Flynn as Richard Burton, Mark Gatiss as John Gielgud and Tuppence Middleton as Elizabeth Taylor in a moving drama about the making of Burton and Gielgud’s Hamlet, which became theatre’s most successful Hamlet ever, running for four months on Broadway. Why would the most famous movie star in the world choose to do a play which everyone already knows? 

Burton, newly married to Taylor, is seen rehearsing for an experimental new version of the great tragedy under John Gielgud’s exacting direction. Despite epic battles between the director and actor, between icon and star, illuminated in Thorne’s stirring backstage drama, the production opens on Broadway in 1964 to rave reviews and packed houses.

Monica helped underwrite this new dramatic work at the National Theatre, called “A Love Letter to Theatre”. It opened at the Lyttleton Theatre in 2023 to nightly standing ovations, then transferred to the West End. The Motive and the Cue is expected to transfer to New York in 2026/2027.

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The Guardian