See the new Doctor Who live on stage

The Stage
This just in: Matt Smith, who will soon start filming his first scenes as the Doctor for the 2010 series of Doctor Who, will be performing live at London’s Royal Court Theatre this coming Friday at 4pm.

He will be taking part in a rehearsed reading of The Hotel Play by Wallace Shawn, as part of the Royal Court’s season devoted to the playwright. It’s a large piece with a cast of over sixty, so don’t expect him to get a huge amount of stage time. On the other hand, there are lots of other splendid actors joining him in the endeavour, including Benedict Cumberbatch, who TV Today included in our rundown of people who could possibly take on the role of the good Doctor. Longer term Who fans should note that also taking part is Geoffrey Beevers, who played the Master in the 1980 story The Keeper of Traken, a role he has also reprised

The full cast list (cribbed wholesale from the Royal Court website) is:

Cast includes Geoffrey Beevers, Diane Borger, Andrew Buckett, Bill Buckhurst, Ben Caplin, Anna Calder-Marshall, Kier Charles, Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Darnley, Sarah Davies, Jacqueline Defferary, Monica Dolan, Emily McDonnell, Elyse Dodgson, Amanda Drew, Deborah Eisenberg, Stephanie Fayerman, Ed Fortes, Alan Francis, Ian Gelder, Adam Gillen, Jonathan McGuiness, Alex Guiney, Jeremy Herrin, William Hope, Shane Hough, Maxwell Hutcheon, Patrick Kennedy, Isabella Laughland, Rob Laycock, Deirdre Lennon, Daisy Lewis, Alex Lowe, Charlotte Lucas, Emily Lucienne, George Mackay, Bruce Mackinnon, Benjamin Noble, Pamela Nomvete, Will Payne, Harry Peacock, Stephen Pidcock, Pearce Quigley, Ian Redford, Tariq Rifaat, Marcelo Dos Santos, Danny Sapani, Kerry Shale, Baruka O’Shaughnessy, Matt Smith, Roderick Smith, Colin Stinton, Bobby Stokes, Nicolas Tennant, John Trindle, June Watson, Harry Waller, Nigel Whitmey, Amanda Wilkin and Becky Wootton

The theatre’s website booking system seems to be playing up at the moment, so I can’t tell if there are any tickets left. However, the chances of seeing such a huge array of acting talent in one place is very rare, so in any event I’d advise booking as quickly as possible. Once word gets about Mr. Smith being involved, tickets are liable to go very quickly. Indeed, as the Royal Shakespeare Company noted on its twitter feed: http://twitter.com/TheRSC