Harry Melling has been cast as the lead the West End transfer of the Broadway hit Hand to God. The production opens at the Vaudeville Theatre on 5 February 2016 and also stars Neil Pearson, Jemima Rooper and Kevin Mains.
Harry Melling, best known to Potter fans as Dudley Dursley, will be playing the character Jason. A synopsis of the play may be read below:
Shy, inquisitive student Jason finds an outlet for his burgeoning creativity at the Christian Puppet Ministry in the devoutly religious, relatively quiet small town of Cypress, Texas, until his hand puppet Tyrone — once soft-spoken — takes on a shocking and dangerously irreverent personality all its own. As Tyrone’s influence over Jason steadily grows, Hand to God explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind us.”
The play’s last performance on Broadway is on January 3rd.
It has been announced that Harry Melling has joined the cast of The Angry Brigade, a play by James Graham, which opens on April 30th at the Bush Theatre and runs until June 13th. According to the productions page on Bush Theatre’s website:
Against a backdrop of Tory cuts, high unemployment and the deregulated economy of 1970s Britain, a young urban guerrilla group mobilises: The Angry Brigade.
Their targets: MPs. Embassies. Police. Pageant Queens.
A world of order shattered by anarchy; the rules have changed. An uprising has begun. No one is exempt.
Taking place on 18th April 2015 at the ExCel London, MuggleNet Live! 2015: Expo Patronum is a unique fan event being hosted by MuggleNet. With confirmed guest including Warwick Davis, Harry Melling and Chris Rankin, the event will include talent panels from the film series’ cast, signing events and an interactive expo involving leading members of the Potter community. The event will be supporting Lumos, the charity established by J.K. Rowling, in various fundraising activities throughout the day.
MuggleNet Live! 2015: Expo Patronum will be the first event of its kind for the website, bringing fans together to celebrate the Potter series past, present, and future. To be hosted in the Excel Centre Platinum Suites, the event will host guest panels, signings, photo booths, and exciting exhibitions featuring cast and crew. As well as discussing the series, the event will be an opportunity for fans to discover more about the current projects that the talented cast and crew are working on. Special guests currently include Potter actors Warwick Davis (Star Wars, Doctor Who, Willow), Jessie Cave (Pride, Glue), Anna Schafer (Hollyoaks, Glue) and Chris Rankin (Atlantis). More guests and programming details will be announced in the upcoming months.
Commenting on the event, Emerson Spartz, CEO of Spartz Inc. and founder of MuggleNet.com, said: “The MuggleNet Live! convention is situated at the perfect time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future with Harry Potter cast and crew members, and the entire Wizarding World fandom and its wider community.”
This is far from all the exciting features of the convention. More guests and activities will be announced in the coming weeks so be sure to keep up with the Expo on Facebook, Twitter and their website! This Sunday at 7pm GMT the staff will be hosting a Google Hangouts session to answer any questions fans have about the event.
In a new interview with The Stage, Harry Melling talks about his acting career and figuring how how to go from being a “child actor” to an “actor”.
Tell me about your role in The Angry Brigade.
I play lots of different people, which is something I’ve never done before. It’s something that terrified me because I liked the idea of hanging on to one person and making sure that story is charted throughout. If you’re playing lots of different people, you’re juggling a lot of different balls. Sometimes, I feel that when you watch that style of acting, you see the skill of the actor as opposed to the character, so in that respect it’s a very interesting challenge to try to make each character as defined as the others.
Has doing film work as a child actor influenced the way you work now?
It influenced me in terms of watching older people be on set. It confirmed it was something I wanted to do, but it must have influenced me in other ways I can’t tell you how or why. But I always felt very comfortable on stage, and when I was at drama school there was a heavy emphasis on stagecraft, which has been really useful for me.
What made you undertake formal training?
I really wanted to bridge that gap between being a child actor and an actor. I’m not saying drama school is always the way to do that, but it made sense for me. I always wanted to be as good as I could be, and I think drama school teaches you how to fall on your arse, which is exactly what I needed.
The Angry Brigade runs at Warwick Arts Centre until October 17, and then at Watford Palace Theatre from October 21-25. Visit this website for more information.
Harry Melling, who played Dudley Dursley in the Potter films, recently discussed his post-Potter career in a new interview with Digital Spy. Since being in Potter, Harry has appeared in numerous stage plays as well as his own one-man show (which will be going to London next year after a successful run in New York.) His newest project is another play, The Angry Brigade, which runs from September 19 to October 4 at The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth. Read the full interview here and some snippets below.
His new play The Angry Brigade takes him back to the 1970s
“It’s a great piece of theatre I think, the writing is exceptional: so full and brimming with ideas. Paines Plough are such a great company to work for. I’ve always wanted to work with them because I love all the new writing stuff they do, and James Graham is a brilliant, brilliant writer.
“I play quite a few [characters]. In the second act I play a guy called Jim, he was one of the Angry Brigaders, one of the Stoke Newington 8. He went to Cambridge where he met John Barker, who’s a fellow Angry Brigader. And they just got bored of the way the world ran really, and they tried to change it. Especially in Britain they were bored of the government, and the types of people that were running the country, and how the country was organized… they just didn’t want to be a part of it.”
“I think it’s extremely funny because James’s writing is always very funny. It’s extremely sharp, the wit is very clever, very witty. But also there’s some really heart-breaking scenes, you see their relationships corrode and you see them splintering. So it’s constantly going between those two things, from being very funny to going very serious. It’s a time in history that was kept under wraps. So that’s what is fizzing underneath this production: the need to tell this story.”
He still looks back fondly on his time in the Harry Potter universe
“It was so many years of doing it. And although I wasn’t on the yearly commitment that perhaps the others were on – because they were needed throughout the year for the shoot – I think maybe I got the best of both worlds. Allowing myself to live in the same world as movie making and then try and get back to school.
“I was very lucky in that sense. I had a great time, I learned a lot. It was a wonderful experience. It’s kind of odd to talk about it because it’s like talking about your childhood, it’s sometimes quite slippery what you remember and what you don’t remember. But I just remember it being such a blast.”
In a new interview with Theatre Mania, Harry Potter alum Harry Melling (Dudley) discusses his newest role as Fool in King Lear, currently running in New York. Last year we reported that the play was in London at the Minerva Theatre. Tickets for the play, running until February 9th, may be purchased at the BAM Harvey Theater website.
Is this your first time doing Shakespeare professionally?
It is. I’ve done Restoration and a Jacobean [plays], both in quite big houses in the UK, but I’ve only done Shakespeare at drama school. It’s a very new adventure for me.
How did this role come about?
The director [Angus Jackson] saw me in a couple of shows in the UK and then invited me to meet him. Then, there was a second round, with Frank [Langella], and then I met again with Frank, and then it was an offer. It was nice that Angus was familiar with me and my work. It’s quite a usual routine to get a job, as opposed to, he saw me in this and said “Yes, I want you!” It was a three-round process.
What’s more intimidating — a direct offer or a three-round audition process?
It can work both ways. The jobs I’ve been offered straight have been very scary in their own way because you feel like you haven’t proven yourself yet. The rehearsal period is almost more precious because you feel like you’ve got something to prove. At least with going in a few times, they can get a sense of what you want to do with it before hitting rehearsal.
Tell me about your take on the Fool.
I’ve always been fascinated by characters who are extremely dangerous —that are the truth tellers throughout the play. Although they can potentially come across silly, there’s a well of truth that he almost throws like daggers towards Lear, to try and steer him back onto a path of reason. Angus already made a choice by casting him young, which is nice because that allows me to get away with things that perhaps an older Fool wouldn’t. Most important [I didn’t want to] make him into a dancing, juggling, annoying presence on stage.
When the Fool disappears, where does he go?
That’s the big question, isn’t it? My interpretation, at the moment, is he goes off to kill himself. My rather tricky job is to make my last line [incorporate] the future of what’s going to happen to him — just living in one line.
What is it like working with Frank Langella?
It’s been brilliant. He’s a real force, not only on stage, but offstage. How he does it every night, to the degree to which he does, is remarkable.
I understand you’re also doing a show later this year at 59E59 Theaters?
It’s a play I’ve been writing for two years, called Peddling. It’s one person on stage talking. It started out as a story that I experienced when I was eight years old. This door-to-door salesman came around. We said we weren’t buying anything, and he said, “OK, thank you,” walked away, and for the next two hours, threw gravel stones at our house and completely lost it. I’ve always been completely fascinated about how you get to that point. I wondered what happened to him after, where he went to and where he’s been. That whole narrative has been living in my head for over a decade.
Switching gears entirely, what do you think of this planned Harry Potter stage play ?
I think it’s great. I have no idea how it’s going to work, tonally or stylistically, but it will [work] because the narrative is so interesting. I’ll be there, definitely. [pause] I probably won’t be in it, but I’ll definitely be there.
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