{"id":2170714,"date":"2026-09-29T05:07:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2170714"},"modified":"2026-09-29T05:07:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:07:30","slug":"sir-mark-rylance-stars-in-updated-17th-century-play-set-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2170714","title":{"rendered":"Sir Mark Rylance stars in updated 17th Century play set in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/9cbf\/live\/447171b0-bb4c-11f1-a430-4d16ee157c41.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Oscar-winner Sir Mark Rylance plays the duplicitous vicar Pastor Blake in Tartuffe (Remixed)<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Academy Award winner Sir Mark Rylance is starring in a “remixed” version of a 17th Century play by Moliere at the Marylebone Theatre.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tartuffe (Remixed) is set in London with an African family about to marry into a Jamaican family and has been written and directed by Darren Raymond, with whom Sir Mark has a long working history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The actor plays the hilariously cunning Pastor Terrence Blake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He’s the catalyst of the play. The play is really about the family, but he’s a conman who comes in like any good conman in a very convincing disguise, in this case as an Anglican priest,” Sir Mark said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sir Mark Rylance loves African and Caribbean culture<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sir Mark is the only white character in a play with an otherwise all black cast in what he describes as “an incredible meeting of two different cultures”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He added: “Because of the history of the relations of Europe and America with Africa and the Caribbean there is a rather wonderful and sometimes, no, always tragic resonance with the age of slavery.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said: “I’ve learnt a lot more, but I’ve always loved African and Caribbean culture. I live in Brixton. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Since I came back to England in ’78, I’ve wanted to live in those communities. I like that culture.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Remixing old English plays using old-style language and modern London slang has become Darren Raymond’s trademark<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sir Mark and Raymond have found both purpose and deep friendship through working together over two decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They are part of Intermission Youth: Raymond as founder and artistic director and Sir Mark, first as patron, then trustee when the youth theatre became a charity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It also marks the launch of the Intermission Ensemble, a place for the classically trained graduates of Intermission Youth to start their professional careers as actors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is Intermission Ensemble’s first Off-West End play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Seven<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Many, but not all of the actors in Tartuffe (Remixed) have come through Intermission Youth<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“It’s a bit like Arsenal who go in and find the young football players by having a wide range of youth programmes, but then eventually have a professional team,” explains Sir Mark, who is also starring in one of Raymond’s plays for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘I saw a lot of myself in Othello’<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Darren Raymond started Intermission Youth Theatre in 2008 as a way of helping disenfranchised young people in London feel included in society through the works of Shakespeare.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He had spent a brief period of time in the criminal justice system some years earlier and found an unexpected connection to the bard with the play Othello, during a workshop led by Rylance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Growing up, Shakespeare for me wasn’t something I was particularly interested in, but we were looking at Othello, and Mark was doing brilliant stuff at the Globe at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He was able to come in and really introduce the text to us in a way that resonated,” recalls Raymond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I saw a lot of myself in Othello. It was a character who was looking for love, belonging, identity. These were the very things I was searching for myself.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Morenike Onajobi gave up her fulltime job in HR to become a professional actor in Tartuffe<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Many of the young people he works with are also looking for the same things, he adds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Morenike Onajobi, a graduate of Intermission Youth, is making her professional debut as an actor, having left her full-time job in HR to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She plays Kemi, the \u201cvoice of reason\u201d in the play, and said working alongside Sir Mark meant “every single day is like a masterclass”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Working with him and Darren combined is really fun. And they have fun, they really do.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Rylance and Raymond have plans to take the play to the West End proper, as well as to work together on more professional plays through Intermission Ensemble in the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I ask whether Tartuffe (Remixed) then, is not just the culmination of their work together, but the beginning of an expansion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I hope so!” exclaims Rylance. “I’m enjoying it so much, it’s where I’m going to do my classical work.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What have they learned from each other after so many years working together?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\ufeff”He’s a brother to me,” says Raymond of Rylance, “and a lovely human being. He’s a person who has changed my life, and I love him to bits.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Rylance reaches over to grasp Raymond’s arm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He’s one of the great leaders,” he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“My faith in people is revived when I’m with Darren.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“My hope, particularly where hope is rightly placed, is with young people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He’s just got enormous gifts and on top of it all a sense of humour.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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  • Tartuffe (Remixed) runs at the Marylebone Theatre till the 24 October.<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on <\/i>Sounds<\/i> and follow BBC London on <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, <\/i>X<\/i> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>. Send your story ideas to <\/i>hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

    [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cm5ydnk9ekyyo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/9cbf\/live\/447171b0-bb4c-11f1-a430-4d16ee157c41.jpg”] BBC Oscar-winner Sir Mark Rylance plays the duplicitous vicar Pastor Blake in Tartuffe (Remixed) Academy Award winner Sir Mark Rylance is starring in a “remixed” version of a 17th Century play by Moliere at the Marylebone Theatre. Tartuffe (Remixed) is set in London with an African family about to marry into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2170714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2170714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2170714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2170714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2170714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}