Samuel Foote Comes Home

This is excellent news.

It has been announced this morning that Ian Kelly’s play Mr Foote’s Other Leg will transfer to Theatre Royal Haymarket after its sell-out run at the Hampstead Theatre. The play is about the 18C satirical comedy actor and impresario Samuel Foote (1720 – 1777), who was all but forgotten until Kelly’s 2012 biography drew him out of the shadows. The West End run could hardly be more significant: the Theatre Royal Haymarket was Foote’s own playhouse and the royal warrant was granted to him personally.

Kelly told London Historians:

“I am chuffed to bits, of course as a playwright and actor, but mainly, in truth, for Mr Foote – who returns to HIS OWN theatre 240 years on….and if I do nothing else, as a historian, I am proud as punch of that – one of London’s great lost figures re-found”.

The play is directed by Richard Eyre and stars Simon Russell Beale as Samuel Foote. Its West End run is from 29 October for 12 weeks.