Gary Oldman will return to his first-ever theatre
ReutersGary Oldman is to return to the theatre where he began his career, for his first stage role since the late 1980s.
The Oscar-winning actor will star in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at York Theatre Royal next April.
Oldman started out at the venue in 1979 in plays like Privates on Parade and She Stoops to Conquer - as well as playing the cat in the pantomime Dick Whittington that Christmas.
"My professional public acting debut was on the stage at the York Theatre Royal," he said. "York, for me, is the completion of a circle. It is 'the where it all began'. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home."
The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is "all the more poignant "because it is "a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier", the star added.
After starting out in York, London-born Oldman went on to act at the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He then swapped theatre for film with break-out roles in Sid and Nancy, JFK and Bram Stoker's Dracula.
He went on to play Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, won the Oscar for best actor in 2018 for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, and is currently starring in Apple TV's hit drama Slow Horses.
The 66-year-old said he had been considering going back to the stage for a long time.
"I have never been far from the theatre and, in fact, have been discussing plays and my return to the theatre for nearly 30 years," Oldman said.
He took his family to visit the historic York theatre this March, which was when he met the venue's current chief executive Paul Crewes.
"It was a lovely afternoon, just reminiscing," Crewes told BBC Radio York.
"We stayed in touch and we started talking about potential projects. Obviously he is a theatre person, although he's been in film for many, many years, and I think he's been thinking about returning to the theatre.
"There was something about coming back to York, I think, that maybe triggered his interest again, and we started talking about what projects might be of interest.
"Krapp's Last Tape was suggested by him, and it seemed the perfect project because, fundamentally it's about a man looking back over the last 30-odd years, and we'd spent the day with Gary in a sense doing something similar."
Krapp’s Last Tape, a one-act play about an old man listening to his younger self via taped recordings, will run from 14 April to 17 May 2025.
Priority booking will open on 6 November, with public sales from 16 November.