"Harry Potter" to whip out his "wand" on West End stage!!

[mc_squared]

Audience get up close and personal for Harry Potter star's nude debut

By BAZ BAMIGBOYE Last updated at 14:43pm on 13th October 2006
Daniel Radcliffe: The Harry Potter star will make his nude theatre debut with 60 members of the audience seated onstage



Daniel Radcliffe may find that the audience is a little too close for comfort when he performs a sensational nude scene on stage in the West End next year.
Sixty people from the audience will actually be seated on stage when the Harry Potter star, in his role as the troubled groomsman Alan Strang in Peter Shaffer's celebrated play Equus, simulates a sex act while naked and astride a horse. The play, which also stars Richard Griffiths, will be performed in the round for 16 weeks at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, with previews starting on February 16 and an official opening night planned for February 27.
The rest of the audience will have to be content with watching Daniel, 17, from the stalls and the circle - but I predict that those 60 seats on stage are going to be the most sought-after seats in London.
Tickets will not go on sale at the Gielgud for a while. In any case, Equus will open after Frost/Nixon, which is being transferred from the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, completes a limited run.
John Napier, the awardwinning designer of the original production of Equus four decades ago, has been lured from his studio in East Sussex by producer David Pugh to create a set for the new production, which will be directed by Thea Sharrock.
The nude scene was a coup de theatre in the original production when Peter Firth (spy chief Harry Pearce in the brilliant Bafta-winning Spooks on BBC television) played the Alan Strang role. Firth also did a screen version with Richard Burton.
Radcliffe, who is finishing work on Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, shooting scenes with Ralph Fiennes as the evil Voldemort, has been studying the play for more than a year.
The Daily Mail was the first to reveal that the teenager was considering making his dramatic debut on the London stage - although at the time no one realised just how dramatic his performance would be.
In the play, Strang is institutionalised for blinding six horses with a groom's spike. Griffiths will play Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist who begins a psychological and spiritual investigation into what drove the young man to commit the cruel acts.
Griffiths, who has shed three stone in weight, recently completed a sellout run on Broadway with the original National Theatre cast of Alan Bennett's The History Boys.
The movie version opens in cinemas today and Griffiths is tipped for possible Orange, Bafta and Academy Award nominations for his performance.
He and Daniel know each other well: he plays Harry's horrible Uncle Vernon in the Potter pictures.
Director Sharrock and producer Pugh will cast the remaining Equus roles over the next few weeks and begin rehearsals on January 3.

[MrLick]

hahhahaahhaha i thought at first it was going to say a nude scene in harry potter

[Starlight]

Oh this is old news...

[Sienna]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrcool011
hahhahaahhaha i thought at first it was going to say a nude scene in harry potter

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That's what I thought too. I was thiking that the movies are indeed getting darker and more mature

[blackchickintheback]

WTF? He's like 16...
eeh....???

[badlydrawngirl]

Eww, I'd be too disturbed to pay to watch that.

[marianatsl]

uuhhh... can we touch him while he is nude??

[twistedlogic149]

EWW.

[Lifelike]

My mom wants to take me all the way to London to see it. Because she LOVES Equus. Lol.

[anniep_93]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lifelike
My mom wants to take me all the way to London to see it. Because she LOVES Equus. Lol.

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I feel for you.

[Starlight]

HAha!

[RICK8]

Someone tell broom boy to keep his wand to himself!!!

[blackchickintheback]

...yeah, how much is he getting paid? lol.

[RICK8]

Far too much,I mean how hard is it to fly around on a broom??

[mc_squared]

What will Hermione say, Harry?

Last updated at 11:44am on 30th January 2007 Comments (27)
Divested of his clothes, not to mention the lightning scar on his forehead, this is Harry Potter a million miles from Hogwarts.
Between filming the fifth and sixth Potter movies, 17-year-old Daniel Radcliffe is appearing on the West End stage in a revival of Peter Shaffer's controversial play Equus.




He plays troubled stablehand Alan Strang and is involved in a lengthy nude sex scene with former Holby City actress Joanna Christie.
Radcliffe was clearly keen to impress with his physique, pumping up his slender frame in the gym for seven hours a week.
But whether his young fans will be impressed by his transition from Hermione Granger's boy wizard friend to hunky sex symbol remains to be seen.
Websites were receiving e-mails from parents worried about Radcliffe's appearance in the play, which will be open to children despite its explicit adult content.




One said: 'We as parents feel Daniel should not appear nude. Our nine-year-old son looks up to him as a role model. We are very disappointed and will avoid the future movies he makes.'
Another wrote: 'I am curious as to how and why his parents said this was okay.'

The play opens at the Gielgud Theatre on February 27 and has already attracted advance bookings worth £1million.
Radcliffe has been rehearsing his nude scene for a week with his female co-star and although he was 'a little hesitant and shy' at first, he had overcome his embarrassment, said producer David Pugh.
He added: 'Equus is on the school syllabus and I would never stipulate what age people should be to see it.'
Radcliffe's spokesman Vanessa Davies said: 'Daniel does not want to step away from Harry Potter but he does want to show he is an rounded actor capable of very different and diverse roles.
'He has tremendous support from Harry Potter fans.'
Equus opened in the West End in 1973 to huge controversy. It was followed in 1977 by a movie version in which Peter Firth played Alan and Jenny Agutter played his girlfriend Jill, both appearing full frontally nude.
Miss Agutter also features in the 2007 version - as a judge with her clothes on.