Olivier Award winner Nathaniel Parker will star as Professor Henry Higgins in the upcoming 70th Anniversary Australian season of My Fair Lady.
Producers Opera Australia and John Frost for Crossroads Live have confirmed Parker’s casting in the much-loved musical, which will premiere at the Sydney Opera House in September before opening at Arts Centre Melbourne in November.
Parker is best known to Australian audiences for his screen roles in the BBC crime drama series The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and as Agravaine de Bois in Merlin. On stage, he won an Olivier Award and received a Tony Award nomination for his performance as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. He was also Olivier Award-nominated for The Mirror and the Light.
“My Fair Lady is an iconic film that seems to become more relevant by the year,” Parker said. “I feel like a kid in a candy store. It’s just a dream come true. I remember when I got the part of Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice opposite Dustin Hoffman back in the mists of time, thinking that I was the luckiest 29 year old actor around, and this job makes me the luckiest ‘coughsplutter year old’ around!”
Parker trained at LAMDA and the National Youth Theatre. His extensive theatre credits include productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, among them A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Every Man in his Humour, Richard II, The Rover, The Storm and The Winter’s Tale.
His other theatre credits include Romeo & Juliet at the Young Vic, The Merchant of Venice, 50 Revolutions, Speed-the-Plow, The Audience, This House, An Ideal Husband, Operation Epsilon, Rock ’N’ Roll, Separate Tables, The Browning Version and Ragdoll.
On screen, Parker has appeared in The Last Duel, directed by Ridley Scott, as well as Haunted Mansion, Stardust, Flawless, Into Thin Air, Beverly Hills Ninja, The Bodyguard, Othello and War Requiem.
Parker’s appointment completes the principal casting for the new Australian season, which is based on Julie Andrews’ 2016 production. Renowned Australian soprano Claire Lyon will play Eliza Doolittle.
They will be joined by previously announced cast members, including several Australian theatre icons returning to roles they performed in the 2016 production. Reg Livermore will return as Alfred P. Doolittle, Robyn Nevin as Mrs Higgins and Tony Llewellyn-Jones as Colonel Hugh Pickering.
Anne Wood will play Mrs Pearce, David Whitney will reprise the role of Karpathy, and Freddy Hellier will make his mainstage musical theatre debut as Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
The ensemble includes Anton Berezin, Eleanor Blythman, Devon Braithwaite, Rachel Cole, Natasha Dumlao, Blake Erickson, Peter Ho, Anthony Garcia, Matt Heyward, Tisha R. Kelemen, Genevieve Kingsford, Naomi Livingston, Madeleine Mackenzie, Kassie Martin, Mary McCorry, Julia McRae, Oscar Mulcahy, Tom New, Lachlan O’Brien, Morgan Palmer, Matthew Predny, Suzanne Steele, Natasha Veselinovic and Sam Ward.
Swings are Andrew Broadbent, Deborah Caddy, Ellie Nunan and David Sirianni.
My Fair Lady will play at the Sydney Opera House from September, followed by a Melbourne season at Arts Centre Melbourne from November.