Bryan Cranston is starring in a stage adaptation… | Little White Lies

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Bryan Cranston is star­ring in a stage adap­ta­tion of Network

27 Jan 2017

Words by Lena Hanafy

Man with short, greying hair wearing a black shirt and headphones.
Man with short, greying hair wearing a black shirt and headphones.
He’ll play Howard Beale in a brand new Nation­al The­atre production.

Bryan Cranston is set to make his Lon­don stage bow in a brand new Nation­al The­atre pro­duc­tion of Sid­ney Lumet’s clas­sic 1976 film, Net­work. A pow­er­ful satire of the tele­vi­sion indus­try, it fol­lows the ago­nis­ing unrav­el­ling of pre­sen­ter Howard Beale as he’s ruth­less­ly exploit­ed by sta­tion execs cyn­i­cal­ly chas­ing ratings.

Beale is a high­ly com­bustible char­ac­ter famed for his icon­ic ​“mad as hell” mono­logue – it’s a role that should fit Cranston like a pair of big yel­low rub­ber gloves. The Break­ing Bad actor will also be able to draw on his Tony Award-win­ning depic­tion of Lyn­don B John­son in the Broad­way play, ​‘All the Way’.

Get more Lit­tle White Lies

There’s much more to Net­work than a balls-to-the-wall cen­tral per­for­mance though, and Bil­ly Elliot writer Lee Hall will have a tough job on his hands if he’s to improve on Pad­dy Chayefsky’s Oscar-win­ning screen­play. Network’s caus­tic media com­men­tary has nev­er felt more rel­e­vant, and giv­en cur­rent broad­cast­ing trends the pro­duc­ers of this stage ver­sion won’t be lack­ing for inspiration.

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