It’s been well over a decade since Jodie Whittaker last starred on the London stage: trivia fans will doubtless be aware that her last major stage role was in the National Theatre’s 2012 ‘Antigone’, with Christopher Eccleston playing her uncle – only time travellers would have been aware that they were watching two incarnations of The Doctor starring opposite each other, but it was a great show nonetheless.
Now an ex-Timelord, she’ll make her stage return this autumn at the Trafalgar Theatre in Zinnie Harris ‘The Duchess’, the playwright’s acclaimed 2019 adaptation of John Webster’s gorefest Jacobean tragedy ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. In a modernised retelling of the tale, Whittaker will play the eponymous noblewoman, whose general decency as a human being is a red rag to the large number of men set upon destroying her.
Without getting into spoilers too much, it’s definitely not one to see if you’re all about the happy endings. But it should be a fine opportunity for Whittaker to flex her range and move back into the tragic gear she found so memorably in ‘Antigone’.
Other casting is TBC, with Harris herself directing.‘The Duchess’ is at Trafalgar Theatre, Oct 5-Dec 20.
Tickets are on sale now at TheDuchessPlay.com.
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