Joe Thomas is one of the stars of the first UK Tour of What’s In A Name?, adapted and directed by Jeremy Sams from the award-winning French film and stage sensation, Le Prènom. Thomas (The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat) will appear in the family dinner party comedy alongside James Lance (Jeeves and Wooster, Northern Soul), Summer Strallen (Top Hat, Young Frankenstein) and Alex Gaumond (Company, Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, Matilda). Further casting to be announced.

The production, which opened to critical acclaim at the Birmingham REP in 2017, will open at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, from 5-14 September with press night on 12 September, before visiting Glasgow, York, Aylesbury, Cambridge, Windsor, Richmond and Southampton.

Father-to-be Vincent and his partner Anna are invited to dinner by his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Peter. They are joined by childhood friend Carl for a mature and sophisticated gathering.

The meal is lovingly prepared, and wine carefully selected. The friends are prepared for the usual humorous exchanges they've come to expect.

But tonight, a startling revelation about the name chosen for Vincent's and Anna’s expected child becomes the catalyst for a destructive argument which spirals hysterically out of control. Tonight no one is holding back! Egos, childish resentment and unspoken feelings are relentlessly and hilariously exposed for the first time.

Playing Vincent will be Joe Thomas, an actor and writer best known as Simon in the multi-award winning E4 show The Inbetweeners. Following the success of The Inbetweeners (and the two eponymous films that followed) Joe starred as Kingsley in all four series of Fresh Meat, and as George in Chickens, which he also co-wrote. Most recently Joe starred as Nick in the 2018 feature film The Festival and as Martin Lavender in the BBC2 sitcom White Gold, alongside Ed Westwick and James Buckley. Joe has script development deals with Channel 4 and Fudge Park/BBC and was on the latest series of Dave’s Taskmaster.

James Lance will be playing Peter. He has had a huge variety of roles in theatre, television and film, most notably in British television comedies; including BBC Two’s I’m Alan Partridge and Simon Pegg’s Spaced for Channel 4, as well as appearing in Channel 4’s award-winning sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror. James’ film credits include The Bookshop, Northern Soul andBronson. As well as his many on-screen roles, James has also performed on stage in West End productions such as Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Pirandello’s Henry IV and Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, which premiered at the Richmond Theatre and then transferred to the Duke of York’s Theatre. He has also performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he played the character of Terry Gilliam in Pythonesque, based on the comedy group Monty Python.

Playing Anna is Olivier Award-nominated actress Summer Strallen. She most recently starred as Alice in Alexis Michalik’s Intra Muros at Park Theatre and she is best known for leading West End stage roles in Top Hat, The Sound of Music, Young Frankenstein, The Drowsy Chaperone, Guys and Dolls, The Boy Friend, Love Never Dies, Cats, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. On TV, her credits include Hollyoaks in which her character Summer Shaw auditioned for and won the role of Maria Von Trapp inThe Sound of Music which Strallen went on to play on stage.

Carl will be played by Alex Gaumond, who most recently received critical acclaim for his role as Paul in Marianne Elliott’s multi-Olivier® award-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company in the West End. Further stage credits include A Christmas Carol (Old Vic), Caroline, Or Change (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Trial of Jane Fonda (Park Theatre), Into the Woods (Manchester Royal Exchange), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Sweeney Todd (ENO) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, RSC’s Matilda: The Musical, Top Hat and We Will Rock You (all West End). Film credits include The Hustle, My Dinner with Hervé and Hampstead.

Highly respected director Jeremy Sams has adapted and directed multiple celebrated productions. As a director his credits include Oklahoma! (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Wizard of Oz (West End and World Tour), The Sound of Music (West End and Toronto), Noises Off (National Theatre, West End, UK Tour and Broadway) and Benefactors (UK Tour and West End). His credits as an adaptor include The Park (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Rehearsal (Almeida and West End), Beckett (West End) and Les Parents Terribles (National Theatre and Broadway).

The original play premiered in 2010 at the Théâtre Édouard VII in Paris, France, where the production received six Molière Award nominations and ran for over 300 performances. Matthew Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière then wrote the screenplay for the film (2011) which played to over 3.25 million people in France alone. It received widespread critical acclaim, and won several César awards from the French Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques, along with the Grand Prix Hydro-Québec at the Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, and the Radio Canada Audience Award at the Cinéfranco International Francophone Film Festival in Toronto. The Italian translation of the movie went on to receive several prestigious Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalist awards. The play has now been translated into over 22 languages, and has had incredible box office success around the world.

What’s In A Name? is written by Matthew Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière with adaptation, translation and direction by Jeremy Sams. Set will be designed by Francis O’Connor and lighting design is by Rick Fisher.

Picture: Rich Hardcastle

Listings Information

Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
5 – 14 September
Press Night on 12 September, 7.45pm
01483 44 00 00 | www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk/

Theatre Royal Glasgow
1 – 5 October
0844 871 7647* | www.atgtickets.com/venues/theatre-royal-glasgow/

Grand Opera House York
8 – 12 October
0844 871 3024* | www.atgtickets.com/venues/grand-opera-house-york/

Aylesbury Waterside Theatre
22 – 26 October
0844 871 7607* | www.atgtickets.com/venues/aylesbury-waterside-theatre/

Cambridge Arts Theatre
28 October – 2 November
01223 503 333 | www.cambridgeartstheatre.com/

Theatre Royal Windsor
4 – 9 November
01753 853 888 | theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk/

Richmond Theatre
12– 16 November
0844 871 7651* | www.atgtickets.com/venues/richmond-theatre/

Nuffield Southampton Theatre
19– 23 November
023 8067 1771 | www.nstheatres.co.uk/