Anna Friel makes West End Debut

A new stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffanys is due to open later this year with Pushing Daisies star Anna Friel staring as Holly Golightly in her West End debut. The part was made famous in the 1961 film staring Audrey Hepburn.

The show will open on 29th September 2009, where it is booking until 9th January 2010 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Directed by Sean Mathias, who acts as artistic director of the entire season, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is adapted by Samuel Adamson. Though Adamson draws more on the original source of Truman Capote’s 1958 novella, “Moon River”, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s Oscar-winning song from Blake Edwards’ film, will be included in the stage version.

In 1940s New York, a struggling young writer moves into a Manhattan apartment building and soon becomes captivated by his charming and beautiful neighbour, Holly Golightly, whose public persona differs from her vulnerable private self. With her string of rich suitors, will the penniless writer “Fred” succeed in capturing the heart of this good-time girl?

Breakfast at Tiffany’s returns Anna Friel to the London stage for the first time since Lulu at the Almeida at King’s Cross in 2001. Her other stage credits include Closer on Broadway. She’s best known for her screen credits in the likes of Pushing Daisies, Rogue Trader, Land Girls and Brookside. Her Breakfast at Tiffany’s co-star will be, making his London stage debut, American Joseph Cross, whose credits include Milk and Running with Scissors on film and Landscape of the Body and Mourning Becomes Electra on stage.

Speaking about her new role, Anna Friel said: “Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's has always been one of my favourite novels, and I am delighted to have been given both the opportunity to play one of my all-time favourite heroines, Holly Golightly, and to be returning home to the London stage.”