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The play that propelled a generation of British actors to fame is creating a new set of future stars — headed by one familiar name.
Will Attenborough, 22, son of former Almeida theatre boss Michael and grandson of Richard, Lord Attenborough, will make his London stage debut this spring in Julian Mitchell’s Another Country.
When the story of homosexuality and scandal in a Thirties public school premiered at the Greenwich Theatre in 1981, an unknown Rupert Everett took the lead role of Guy, loosely based on the gay Cambridge spy Guy Burgess.
Daniel Day-Lewis and later Colin Firth succeeded him in the West End and now recent Guildhall School graduate Rob Callender is to follow them.
Attenborough, who graduated in English from Cambridge University last summer, co-stars as Guy’s Marxist friend Tommy Judd — a role Kenneth Branagh played in the West End and Firth performed alongside Everett in the 1984 film.
Attenborough said: “They are phenomenal parts for young people, which maybe had something to do with giving those guys a really great push.”
He said he had been “fairly certain” he wanted to act since the age of 14 and had not been swayed either way by his heritage.
The actor, who lives in Chiswick, attended St Paul’s private school in London, which he said was not “insulated and eccentric” like the school in the play.
He said: “But I guess what I took out of having gone to public school is there’s still this sense of you’re being trained to be the best.”
Another Country runs at the Trafalgar Studios, March 26 to June 21. atgtickets.com/venues/trafalgar-studios
