NT : What's On : Productions : Albert Speer
Albert Speer
a new play by David Edgar (2000)
based on Gitta Sereny's book
Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth
Plucked from obscurity to be Hitler's favourite architect and later promoted to Minister of Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer became the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany, and the closest thing Hitler had to a friend.
Having narrowly escaped hanging at the Nuremberg war crimes trial, Speer emerged from twenty years in Spandau prison, as he thought, a changed man. But even as he published his bestselling accounts of the Third Reich, the extent of his complicity in Nazi crimes returned to haunt him.
David Edgar's panoramic adaptation of Gitta Sereny's definitive and magisterial biography tells the epic story of a man whose devotion to Hitler blinded him to the worst crime of the twentieth-century.
Alex Jennings plays Speer. His award-winning work for the RSC includes the title roles in Peer Gynt and Hamlet and Hitler is played by Roger Allam whose recent work at the National includes Troilus and Cressida, Summerfolk and Money for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor.
David Edgar's previous work includes The Shape of the Table and Entertaining Strangers at the National; Destiny and the adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby at the RSC.
Gitta Sereny's other books include Into That Darkness and Cries Unheard: The Story of Mary Bell.
Running time is 3 hours and 30 minutes
Cast credits:
: Adrian Penketh
: Alex Jennings
: Benny Young
: Cathryn Bradshaw
: Charles Millham
: Chloe Angharad
: Chris Vance
: Christine Kavanagh
: David Weston
: Elizabeth Conboy
: Giles Smith
: Iain Mitchell
: Imogen Slaughter
: Jessica Turner
: John Nolan
: Jonathan Cullen
: Martin Chamberlain
: Patrick Baladi
: Patrick Marlowe
: Pip Donaghy
: Roger Allam
: Sally-Ann Burnett
: Simon Day
: Stephen Ballantyne
: Sylvester Morand
: Tilly Blackwood
: William Gaunt
Production credits:
Director: Trevor Nunn
Set Designer: Ian McNeil
Costume Designer: Joan Wadge
Lighting Designer: Rick Fisher
Video Designer: Chris Laing
Music: Steven Edis
Movement Director: Kate Flatt
Sound Designer: Christopher Shutt
Albert Speer finished on: 8 July 2000
