Bond girl Rosamund Pike heading back to the West End

Bond girl Rosamund Pike will star in Summer And Smoke at the Apollo when it transfers from the Nottingham Playhouse in October. The play by Tennessee Williams, directed by Adrian Noble, opens on 18 October, with previews from 12 October. This is the first time the play, written in 1948, has appeared in the West End.

Summer And Smoke is a story of smoldering attraction and repressed passion set in a small town in America’s Deep South during 1916. Pike plays young Southern belle Alma Winemiller who is in love with John Buchanan, Jr (Chris Carmack), a charismatic but dissolute doctor - reports London Theatre Guide.

Pike appeared in Brian Friel’s new play Performances at Wilton’s Musical Hall last month. She made her London stage debut in Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde at the Royal Court in 2003. Her film roles include Miranda Frost in the James Bond film Die Another Day, Jane in Pride And Prejudice with Keira Knightley, and Elizabeth in The Libertine opposite Johnny Depp, for which she won an award for Best Supporting Actress at the British Independent Film Awards.

Chris Carmack’s film and television credits include The Girls Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Just My Luck, Smallville and The OC. Other members of the cast include: Sebastian Abineri, Michael Brown, David Killick, Tom Lawrence, Kate O’Toole, Chris Ravenscroft, Hanne Steen and Hannah Stokely.

Summer And Smoke was first performed at the Music Box theatre in Chicago in 1948 and was made into a film in 1961 starring Geraldine Page, Laurence Harvey and Rita Moreno. The play received its UK premiere in 1951 at the Lyric Hammersmith starring Margaret Johnston and William Sylvester.

Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize twice: for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1955). In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night Of The Iguana (1961) both received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Play.

Adrian Noble was Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003. His most recent theatre productions include The Home Place with Tom Courtenay, Brand with Ralph Fiennes and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium.

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