Stephen Fry returns to stage after 17 years

Seventeen years after he famously deserted a West End production just days into its run, Stephen Fry will make his return to the stage this summer. Fry will play Malvolio in the Globe's revival of its all-male Twelfth Night, first seen in 2002, which runs for three weeks from 22 September. Mark Rylance, who was the theatre's artistic director at the time of the original run, will reprise his acclaimed performance as Olivia, the lady in mourning with whom Malvolio, her steward, is helplessly in love. In 1995, Fry left a production of Simon Gray's Cell Mates, in which he was starring alongside Rik Mayall, and disappeared to Belgium – "contemplating suicide," according to his website – after a negative review in the Finanical Times. The actor initially claimed stage fright, but later revealed he suffered from bipolar disorder. The production closed early, and Gray later published an account of events in his diary Fat Chance. Fry's online biography states: "The experience still haunts him but the depression has now faded to embarrassment and the anger to forgiveness. Stephen Fry is now a man content." His casting will fuel speculation that the production has an eye on the West End, especially given the involvement of commercial producer Sonia Friedman – raising the intriguing possibility that a production designed for the Globe's open-air auditorium might have to adapt to life indoors. Tim Carroll's production will also feature a number of other original cast members, including Liam Brennan and Peter Hamilton Dyer as Orsino and Feste respectively. They will be joined by Samuel Barnett, whose career was launched by Alan Bennett's The History Boys, and Johnny Flynn, who made his stage debut with Ed Hall's all-male Shakespeare company Propellor, as twins Sebastian and Viola, and Colin Hurley as Sir Toby Belch. The same company will also present Richard III at the Globe, though that production will not feature Fry. From: The guardian