Mirren is Cleopatra again, 33 years on
By Sally Pook

(Daily Telegraph 21st October 1998)

THIRTY-three years after she first played Cleopatra, Helen Mirren last night took on the role once more in a sell-out production with Alan Rickman at the Royal National Theatre.

Yesterday's opening night of Antony and Cleopatra was expected to draw complimentary reviews, although Mirren, 53, and Rickman, 52, have already created a stir at the box office that the National has not seen for more than two decades.

All 54 performances of the production in the 1,100-seat Olivier Theatre sold out a week before the play began previewing, with no poster or print advertising. More than 33,000 tickets were booked from the National's mailing list alone. It is the first time such a feat has occurred in advance of the opening night since the National moved from the Old Vic in the mid-Seventies to the South Bank.

West End producers have already made inquiries about transferring the production next year, although it is unclear whether Mirren's film and television commitments would allow it.

A spokesman for the National Theatre said yesterday: "It is quite astonishing. It is very unusual for something to sell out this quickly. It is all very exciting."

Mirren is expected, unusually, to play Cleopatra in the nude in part of the final scene, the Egyptian queen's death. Alan Bates was originally due to play opposite Mirren, but injured his knee and had to pull out of the production.

Mirren first played Cleopatra in 1965, at the age of 20, for the National Youth Theatre, and then in 1982 opposite Michael Gambon for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Rickman is playing Antony for the first time. Both actors are making their debuts at the National and this is also the director Sean Matthias's first Shakespeare production.

One of the play's other stars went missing only weeks before the production began. The one-foot-long, non-venomous asp, named Cedric, escaped backstage. He turned up a fortnight later in the costume room and was last night set to take part in the production as directed.