Patrick Marber's new comedy-drama about despair and desperation, starring Ron Cook.

REVIEW:

Howard Katz (Ron Cook) awakes on a park bench, dressed in shabby clothes and looking decidedly the worse for wear. He is teetering on the brink of suicide when a young vagrant discovers him, and the disastrous events of his life are revealed in flashback.

Once a showbiz agent of some repute, with 50 years on the clock and ticking, Howard is an objectionable and rude man, who unleashes his self-loathing on his clients and loved ones. When an actor dares to question the paucity of recent auditions, Howard growls, "The camera hates you, that's why you don't work."

Howard’s wife (Mossie Smith) is greeted with a similar mixture of disgust and incomprehension; he engages in a bitter war of words with his father (Trevor Peacock; and relations with his dying mother (Cheery Morris) and his cocksure brother (Paul Ritter) are not much better.

Unable to show his love to anyone and increasingly consumed by anger, Howard submerges himself in a world of gambling and prostitutes, gradually losing everyone and everything most dear to him.

Director: Patrick Marber

Designer: Rob Howell

Lighting: Hugh Vanstone

Cast|: Ron Cook, Ashley Jensen, Cherry Morris, Trevor Peacock, Paul Ritter, Nadim Sawalha, Benedict Smith, Elian Lloyd Smith, Mossie Smith, Russell Tovey.

PATRICK MARBER (director/writer) is one of the UK's top-earning playwrights on the strength of two hugely successful plays: Dealer's Choice (winner of the 1995 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and The Writer's Guild Award for Best West End Play); and Closer (winner of the 1997 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best New Play, Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Comedy, Time Out Award for Best Play In The West End, and the 1998 Olivier Award for Best New Play). This is the third part of a trilogy that began with Dealer's Choice and Closer.

As a director, Marber has overseen productions of The Caretaker at the Comedy Theatre in London, Blue Remembered Hills at the Royal National Theatre, and The Old Neighbourhood at the Royal Court.

Last year, he starred alongside Mark Strong and Kimberly Williams in the West End staging of Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet. Prior to his stage work, Marber was a comedy scriptwriter whose work with Steve Coogan produced characters such as Alan Partridge and Pauline Calf. He also contributed to the award-winning satirical news programme The Day Today.

RON COOK (actor) is currently terrorizing the big screen as a sadistic prison guard in Peter Cattaneo's new comedy Lucky Break. Last year, he played Mr Button in the big budget sequel 102 Dalmatians, and co-starred in two Oscar nominated pictures: Chocolat with Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp; and Quills with Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet and Joaquin Phoenix.

Cook’s other film credits include Peggy Sue Got Married with Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage, The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover, and Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies and Topsy-Turvy. He made his first television appearance in 1978 in The Life Of Shakespeare. The following year, he featured in the series The Racing Game. He has also starred numerous other TV shows, including The Young Ones, The Singing Detective and The History Of Tom Jones. Cook has an extensive theatre portfolio, but appeared on the London stage in Robin Le Fevre's production of Helpless at the Donmar Warehouse.

TREVOR PEACOCK (actor) was busy last year filming four major TV productions: Don Quixote, Lorna Doone with Aidan Gillen, Madame Bovary with Frances O'Connor, and the BBC series The Sins headlining Pete Postlethwaite. He also found time to appear briefly in the film Sabotage.

He made his small screen debut in 1959 as the compere on Drumbeat. During the late '70s and early '80s, he featured in a number of BBC Shakespeare productions and his TV appearances include Last Of The Summer Wine, and The Vicar of Dibley. Peacock's stage credits include Sam Mendes's acclaimed staging of Othello staring Adrian Lester as the abused Moor and Simon Russell Beale as devious Iago, and Tobaccoland directed by Gregory Hersov.

MOSSIE SMITH (actor) recently played big-hearted Kay in the British film comedy House!, opposite Kelly Macdonald and Miriam Margolyes. Smith made her big screen debut in 1987 in Road, based on the Jim Cartwright stage play of the same name, and her other credits include Second Best, The Girl With Brains In Her Feet and Breathtaking, a crime thriller headlining Joanne Whalley, Neil Dudgeon and Rosemary Leach.

TV appearances include South Of The Border, Prime Suspect 4, and Goodnight Mister Tom with John Thaw. On stage, she has featured in Royal Court productions of Our Country's Good, The Recruiting Officer, Road and Three Birds Alighting On A Field. She also starred in Wild Oats at the Royal National Theatre, and The Crucible at the Young Vic.