National Theatre Live: Man and Superman
Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler’s List, Oedipus at the National Theatre) plays Jack Tanner in this exhilarating reinvention of Shaw’s witty, provocative classic. Jack Tanner, celebrated radical thinker and rich bachelor, seems an unlikely choice as guardian to the alluring heiress, Ann. But she takes it in her assured stride and, despite the love of a poet, she decides to marry and tame this dazzling revolutionary. Tanner, appalled by the whiff of domesticity, is tipped off by his chauffeur and flees to Spain, where he is captured by bandits and meets The Devil. An extraordinary dream-debate, heaven versus hell, ensues. Following in hot pursuit, Ann is there when Tanner awakes, as fierce in her certainty as he is in his. A romantic comedy, an epic fairytale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.
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National Theatre Live: Man and Superman starring Ralph Fiennes
Cast

Nicholas Le Prevost
Roebuck Ramsden

Ferdinand Kingsley
Octavius Robinson

Ralph Fiennes
Jack Tanner/Don Juan

Indira Varma
Ann Whitefield/Ana

Christine Kavanagh
Mrs Whitefield

Clare Clifford
Miss Ramsden

Elliot Barnes-Worrell
Straker

Naomi Cranston
Housekeeper/The Sulky Social Democrat

Nick Hendrix
Hector Malone

Corey Johnson
Malone

Tim McMullan
Mendoza/The Devil

Colin Haigh
The Anarchist

Arthur Wilson
The Rowdy Social Democrat

Nicholas Bishop
The Frenchman (Duval)

Henry Everett
Police Officer

Mary Keegan
Police Officer

Simon Markey
Police Officer
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Reviews
Charlie
What a piece of work is “Man and Superman”? Hard work, to be frank. George Bernard Shaw’s experimental juggernaut — deemed unstageable in 1903 — makes for three and a half hours of tangled philosophy: a blow-away light comedy weighed down by footnotes. It’s a play for changing times, a bid to throw off the past and make things anew, and yet Simon Godwin’s handsome, modern-dress revival at the National Theatre treats it as a cultural artefact. His production abandons its audience, offering no clues for decoding the text, while Ralph Fiennes plays the motor-mouth social reformer Jack Tanner like a tongue-twister challenge. You keep up or else.
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