Financial Times
"Playful, poignant, profound. Adrian Lester is absolutely magnetic as Cyrano - thunderously charismatic with impeccable comic timing."
Following a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at the RSC’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Cyrano de Bergerac transfers to the West End’s Noel Coward Theatre for a strictly limited season, with Olivier Award winner Adrian Lester in the title role. Edmond Rostand’s 1897 classic, the play that gave the English language the word panache, is given a bold and contemporary new life.
Cyrano is a brilliant poet, soldier and swordsman cursed with a large nose and a hopeless love. Secretly devoted to his cousin Roxane, he watches her fall instead for the handsome but tongue-tied Christian, and agrees to lend the younger man his words, ghost-writing the love letters that win her heart. It is a story about wit, longing and the gulf between how we look and who we truly are, and it remains as funny and heartbreaking as ever.
Why it’s worth the watch
This is one of theatre’s great romantic roles in the hands of one of Britain’s finest actors. Here is why it is worth catching:
- Adrian Lester. The Olivier winner, celebrated for his Othello and Henry V at the National Theatre, makes his RSC debut in a performance critics have called magnetic and thunderously charismatic.
- The language. Director Simon Evans and co-adaptor Debris Stevenson bring fresh, contemporary poetry to Rostand’s verse without losing its sweep.
- The romance. Beneath the swordplay and wordplay, it is a genuinely moving love story.
- The limited run. After selling out in Stratford, it plays only a short West End season.
