A new English version by Tanya Ronder
By Eduardo de Filippo
Directed By Michael Attenborough
In the balmy heat of late ’40s Naples, Filumena Marturano lies on her deathbed waiting to marry Domenico Soriano, the man who has kept her as his mistress for twenty-five years.
But no sooner has the priest completed the ceremony, than Filumena makes a miraculous recovery. As he reels in shock, Domenico discovers that this brilliant, iron-willed woman has a few more surprises for him.
Eduardo De Filippo’s joyous story is brought to life in a production that embodies the very scent of its Neapolitan setting.
Olivier Award-winning actress Samantha Spiro leads the cast as Filumena. Her theatre credits include Chicken Soup with Barley (Royal Court) Twelfth Night (Donmar West End) and Much Ado About Nothing (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); on television she recently appeared in Simon Amstell’s BBC2 comedy Grandma’s House.
Eduardo De Filippo is one of Italy’s most prolific and respected playwrights of the 20th Century, so highly regarded in his native land that shortly before his death in the 1980s he was made a life senator of the Italian Republic. Writer Tanya Ronder’s last adaptation for the Almeida was 2005’s production of Blood Wedding, more recently she created an acclaimed stage play of
DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little.
Previews Thu 15 - Wed 21 March
Press Night Thu 22 March (7pm)
Evening performances 7.30pm
Saturday matinees 2.30pm from 24 March
Wednesday matinees 2.30pm on 18 April & 2 May
Running time is approximately 2 hours including one interval of 15 minutes.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Happy Mondays 19 March
Talkback Mon 30 April (post performance)
ASSISTED PERFORMANCES
Captioned Wed 18 April, 7.30pm
Audio-described Sat 28 April, 2.30pm (Touch Tour at 1pm)
Alfredo
Theatre includes: The Tempest; The Way of the World; Dracula; Arsenic And Old Lace (Chichester); The Faery Queen (Aix-en-Provence); The Invisible Man (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Churchill Play; The Alchemist (National Theatre); Once In A Lifetime (Piccadilly Theatre); Piaf (Wyndhams); Toad of Toad Hall (Birmingham Rep); The Real Inspector Hound (Warehouse Productions).
For the RSC: As You Like It; King Lear; The Taming of the Shrew; Julius Caesar; The Merchant of Venice; The Changeling; Softcops; Coriolanus; Happy End; The Odyssey; Much Ado About Nothing (RSC USA / European tour); Richard III (RSC Australian tour); Travesties (RSC / Savoy Theatre); The Winter’s Tale; The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe; King John; The Malcontent; Eastwood Ho! (RSC / Gielgud); Sejanus: His Fall.
Television includes: Cyrano de Bergerac; Poirot; Peak Practice; The Bill; EastEnders; Trial & Retribution VII; Foyle’s War; The Commander; Midsomer Murders; The Government Inspector; Doctors.
Film includes: A Bridge Too Far.
Radio includes: The Archers.
Lucia/Teresina
For the Almeida: Measure For Measure.
Theatre credits include: Reigen (George Bernard Shaw Theatre); Desire Under the Elms (New Vic Theatre); Mine (Finborough Theatre); Fool For Love; Gabriel; Penthesilea; The Importance of Being Earnest; Women Beware Women; The Merchant of Venice; The Dutchman (RADA).
Film includes: Crews; Godard and Others; Small Things.
Radio includes: School for Scandal; Last Words.
Ricardo
Theatre includes: The Kitchen; The Habit of Art; War Horse (National Theatre); Remembrance Day (Royal Court); The Gods Weep; Days of Significance (RSC); How To Disappear (Southwark Playhouse); Shoot / Get Treasure / Repeat (Paines Plough).
Television includes: Titanic; Skins; The Inbetweeners.
Film includes: Mine; The Duchess; Running For River.
Diana
Theatre includes: Strange Interlude (National Theatre); The Merchant of Venice; The Taming of the Shrew (RSC); Moonfleece (Riverside Studios); Double Falsehood (Union Theatre); My Girl 2 (Old Red Lion).
Television includes: Endeavour; Doctors.
Film includes: Rearview; Hollow.
Emily was nominated for a BIFA Raindance Award in 2011 for Hollow.
She trained at Central School of Speech and Drama.
Rosalia
For the Almeida: The Winter Guest.
Theatre includes: American Trade; Romeo & Juliet; Tis Pity She's a Whore; Richard III (RSC); The Gentle Avalanche; My Mother Said I Never Should; Black Milk; Terrorism (Royal Court); When I was a Girl I used to Scream and Shout; The Girl with Red Hair (The Bush / Whitehall Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest (Chichester Festival Theatre / Royal Haymarket); Abelard & Eloise (Shakespeare’s Globe); Pornography (Tricycle Theatre); Sweeney Todd (National Theatre); Into The Woods (Donmar Warehouse); Martin Guerre (Prince Edward); On The Town (ENO at the Theatre de Chatelet, Paris).
Seven years with Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company. Including Three Sisters; The Crucible; Way of the World; The Beaux Stratagem; Hedda Gabler; Othello; Loves Labours Lost.
Television includes: Benidorm (five series, winner of two National Television Awards); Case Histories; Justice; Your Mother Should Know; Place of Execution; A Room with a View; Sea of Souls; Taggart; Midsomer Murders; Doctors; Bones; Doctor Who.
Film includes: Hush; Five Days One Summer; The Touch; Brazil; Winter Guest; Othello; Three Sisters.
Sheila’s has performed in her own shows including Love Among the Butterflies and Terrible with Raisins In It in Edinburgh and London.
Michele
Theatre includes: The Comedy of Errors; Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare’s Globe).
Television includes: Misfits; Merlin; Waking The Dead.
Film includes: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; Weekender; Robin Hood.
Filumena
Theatre includes: Chicken Soup with Barley; The Family Plays (Royal Court); Hello Dolly (Winner of Best Actress in a Musical, Olivier Awards 2010); Much Ado About Nothing (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Twelfth Night; Merrily We Roll Along (Winner of Best Actress in a Musical, Olivier Awards 2001 and Winner of Best Actress in a Musical, Whatsonstage.com Awards 2001)(Donmar Warehouse / Wyndhams); Funny Girl (Chichester Festival); Two Thousand Years; Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick (National Theatre); A Little Night Music (Chicago Shakespeare’s Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Bedroom Farce (Michael Codron Plays); As You Like It (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield / Lyric Hammersmith); Jumpers (Birmingham Rep); Roots (Watford Palace / Oxford Stage Company); Teechers; On The Piste (Hull Truck Theatre); How The Other Half Loves (Theatre Royal, Windsor); Glyn & ‘IT’ (Yvonne Arnaud / tour).
Television includes: Rock & Chips; Grandma’s House (Winner of Best Female Comedy Breakthrough Artist, British Comedy Awards 2010); After You’ve Gone; Coupling; M.I.T.; Cold Feet; TV Go Home.
Film includes: Mike Leigh Untitled 2010; Tomorrow La Scala!; From Hell; Cor Blimey.
Samantha has also worked extensively on radio.
Nocella/Waiter
Edmund graduated from RADA in 2009.
Theatre includes: Macbeth (Cheek By Jowl); For Alphonso (for Neil Bartlett, Brighton Festival 2011); Beautiful Blows (Royal Festival Hall); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; The Country; The Seagull; Julius Caesar (RADA); The Country Wife; Bent (OUDS); Look Back In Anger; Single Spies; The Lieutenant of Inishmore; The Cripple of Inishmaan (People's Theatre Newcastle).
Domenico
Theatre includes: The Tempest (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Flare Path (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Henry IV Parts I & II; Richard II; Richard III; Henry IV Parts I, II & III; Twelfth Night; Macbeth; Hamlet; Pilate; Antony & Cleopatra; Much Ado About Nothing; A Patriot For Me; The Wives Excuse; Nicholas Nickelby; (RSC); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (tour); One Life and Counting (Bush Theatre); Macbeth; Schism in England (National Theatre); Macbeth; A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Old Vic); One O’Clock World (Tricycle Theatre); The Beaux Stratagem; Henry V; Guys and Dolls; Edward II; Henry IV (Bristol Old Vic); The Body; King Lear; Antony and Cleopatra (RSC Barbican); The White Devil; Mephisto (Oxford Playhouse).
Television includes: What To Do When Someone Dies; Waking The Dead;Land Girls; Pillars of the Earth; Midsomer Murders; Minder; Bonkers; A Touch of Frost; Waking The Dead; Hutton; Dunkirk; A Lion in Winter; Death in Holy Orders; Holby City; London’s Burning; A Globusz; Shooting To Stardom; Good Guys; The Hummingbird Tree; Witchcraft (four episodes); Dead Romantic; The Bill; A Question of Commitment; Soldier Soldier; Press Gang; A Very Peculiar Prctice; Mr Palfrey of Westminster; A Kind of Loving
Film includes: The Crucifier of Blood; Treasure Island; The Innocent.
Umberto
Theatre includes: An Enemy of the People (Sheffield Crucible); Charley’s Aunt (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester).
Television includes: Silk; Lewis.
Adaptor
Tanya adapted Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding for the Almeida Theatre’s production in 2005. Recently she adapted DBC Pierre’s book Vernon God Little for the Young Vic which was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Play and What’s On Stage Award for Best New Comedy.
Adaptations for the stage include: Peribanez (Young Vic / Company B, Australia); Night Flight (Muztheater, Amsterdam); Macbett (RSC); Peter Pan (Kensington Gardens / O2, San Francisco / US tour).
Original works for film include: King Bastard; Random.
Other projects in development: Liola (under commission by National Theatre); The Table (an evolving project with Rufus Norris, developed with the support of the National Theatre Studio); The Blake Diptych (Fleur Darkin Dance Ensemble).
Director
Michael Attenborough is Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre (since 2002). Previously, he was Associate Director, Mercury Theatre, Colchester (1972-74), Associate Director, Leeds Playhouse (now West Yorkshire Playhouse) (1974-79), Associate Director, Young Vic (1979-80), Artistic Director, Palace Theatre, Watford (1980-84), Artistic Director, Hampstead Theatre (1984-89), Principal Associate Director, Royal Shakespeare Company (1990-2002). On leaving the RSC he was invited to become an Honorary Associate Artist.
For the Almeida: Reasons To Be Pretty; The Knot of the Heart; Through a Glass Darkly; Measure For Measure; When the Rain Stops Falling; In a Dark Dark House; The Homecoming; Awake and Sing; Big White Fog; There Came A Gypsy Riding; Enemies; The Late Henry Moss; Brighton Rock; The Mercy Seat; Five Gold Rings.
For the RSC: Amphibians; The Changeling; Les Liaisons Dangereuses (UK and European tour); After Easter; Pentecost; The Herbal Bed (also in the West End and Broadway); Romeo and Juliet; A Month in the Country; Othello; Henry IV parts I and II; The Prisoner’s Dilemma; Antony and Cleopatra.
For the Palace Theatre productions include: The Girl in Melanie Klein; The Big Knife; Romantic Comedy (also in the West End); Terra Nova.
For the Hampstead Theatre productions include: The War at Home (also on Broadway); Particular Friendships; That Summer; Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme; Separation (also in the West End).
Freelance: Over a Barrel; Single Spies (Turnstyle Group); 1984 (Citadel Theatre, Edmonton); Yerma (Abbey Theatre, Dublin); Anna Weiss (West End); My Mother Said I Never Should (Royal Court); Fashion (Tricycle Theatre); Apollo and Daphne (North Wall); Playing with Fire (National Theatre).
Design
For the Almeida: Ruined; There Came a Gypsy Riding; The late Henry Moss; The Mercy Seat.
Recent productions includes: Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s); The Wizard of Oz (London Palladium); The Sound of Music (Toronto / UK tour / Tokyo); Calendar Girls (UK tour / Australia / Toronto); Hamlet; Pentecost; The Herbal Bed; Romeo and Juliet; Twelfth Night; The Merchant of Venice; Henry VIII (also New York); Othello; The Winter’s Tale (RSC); Look Back in Anger; Noises Off (also West End / UK tour / Broadway); The Playboy of the Western World (National Theatre); Lobby Hero; Divas; Black Comedy / The Real Inspector Hound; A Voyage Round My Father (Donmar Warehouse); The Music Man; Hay Fever; The Water Babies; Cyrano de Bergerac; Saturday Sunday Monday (Chichester Festival Theatre); Rebecca (UK tour); Aspects of Love (UK tour); Scenes from a Marriage (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry).
Opera includes: Anna Bolena (Metropolitan Opera, New York); Tristan und Isolde (Tokyo); Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne / Lille / Chicago); Le Couronnement de Poppée (Paris / Berlin); The Elixir of Love (ENO); Manon Lescaut (Gothenburg); Don Carlo (Frankfurt).
Film includes: Hamlet.
Robert has been nominated for two Olivier Awards and was the winner of a Canadian Dora Award and Drama Logue Award.
Design
For the Almeida: Ruined; There Came a Gypsy Riding; The late Henry Moss; The Mercy Seat.
Recent productions includes: Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s); The Wizard of Oz (London Palladium); The Sound of Music (Toronto / UK tour / Tokyo); Calendar Girls (UK tour / Australia / Toronto); Hamlet; Pentecost; The Herbal Bed; Romeo and Juliet; Twelfth Night; The Merchant of Venice; Henry VIII (also New York); Othello; The Winter’s Tale (RSC); Look Back in Anger; Noises Off (also West End / UK tour / Broadway); The Playboy of the Western World (National Theatre); Lobby Hero; Divas; Black Comedy / The Real Inspector Hound; A Voyage Round My Father (Donmar Warehouse); The Music Man; Hay Fever; The Water Babies; Cyrano de Bergerac; Saturday Sunday Monday (Chichester Festival Theatre); Rebecca (UK tour); Aspects of Love (UK tour); Scenes from a Marriage (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry).
Opera includes: Anna Bolena (Metropolitan Opera, New York); Tristan und Isolde (Tokyo); Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne / Lille / Chicago); Le Couronnement de Poppée (Paris / Berlin); The Elixir of Love (ENO); Manon Lescaut (Gothenburg); Don Carlo (Frankfurt).
Film includes: Hamlet.
Robert has been nominated for two Olivier Awards and was the winner of a Canadian Dora Award and Drama Logue Award.
Lighting
Tim is an Associate at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
For the Almeida: The Knot of the Heart; Becky Shaw; Brighton Rock; Big White Fog; The Lightning Play; Enemies; Blood Wedding; Whistling Psyche.
Theatre includes: Yes Prime Minister (also West End); The Syndicate; Singin’ In The Rain; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (also West End) (Chichester Festival Theatre); Crazy For You (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Earthquakes in London (Headlong); Racing Demon; An Enemy of the People (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Dirty Dancing (UK tour / West End / Toronto / Hamburg / Utrecht / USA tour / Berlin); Lend Me a Tenor (West End / Plymouth); Tell Me on a Sunday (tour); Master Class (Bath Theatre Royal); The Secret Garden (Edinburgh / Toronto); The Cherry Orchard; Arthur and George (Birmingham Rep); The History Boys (tour / West Yorkshire Playhouse); Alphabetical Order (also tour); Darker Shores; Amongst Friends (Hampstead Theatre); A Month in the Country (Salisbury Playhouse); Cinderella (Old Vic); Sleeping Beauty (New York / Barbican / Young Vic); Henry IV Parts I and II (Washington Shakespeare); The Play What I Wrote (Broadway / West End); Merrily We Roll Along (Donmar Warehouse); Hamlet (Japan / Sadler’s Wells); Toyer; Imagine This; Bad Girls The Musical; Otherwise Engaged; As You Like It; Romeo and Juliet; Of Mice and Men (West End). Working extensively with the RSC, his recent credits include Written on the Heart, Cardenio and The City Madam.
Opera includes: Die Frau Ohne Schatten; Elektra (Mariinsky, Russia); Ariadne Auf Naxos (WNO / Boston); Die Fledermause (WNO).
Dance includes: productions for Northern Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells.
Sound
For the Almeida: Measure For Measure; Rope; Duet for One; Waste; The Homecoming; Big White Fog; Dying For It; Hedda Gabler; Macbeth; Brighton Rock; Whistling Psyche; Five Gold Rings; The Mercy Seat; I.D. and many others.
Recent theatre includes: Farewell To The Theatre; The Last Of The Duchess; Skåne; The Train Driver (Hampstead Theatre); The Lady From The Sea; The Snow Queen (Rose Theatre, Kingston); The Heresy Of Love (RSC); Grief; London Assurance; The Power of Yes; England People Very Nice; Much Ado About Nothing; The Enchantment (National Theatre); Calendar Girls; Carrie’s War; In Celebration; Kean; Donkey’s Years; Summer & Smoke; Glengarry Glen Ross (West End); Big Maggie; The Cripple Of Inishmaan (Druid Theatre, Galway / New York / tour); Small Craft Warning; Crazy Paola (Arcola Theatre); A Month In The Country (Salisbury Playhouse); Calendar Girls (Chichester / national tour); Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Druid Theatre, Galway / Dublin); Pure Gold (Soho Theatre); Translations (Princeton / Broadway); Leaves; Empress of India; The Druid Synge (Druid Theatre, Galway / Dublin/ Edinburgh / Minneapolis / New York).
Fight Director
For the Almeida: Reasons To Be Pretty; Through a Glass Darkly; In a Dark Dark House; The Homecoming; Awake and Sing!; Big White Fog; The Late Henry Moss; Festen (also in West End).
Theatre includes: His Dark Materials; Henry IV Parts I and II; Scenes from the Big Picture; Othello; Duchess of Malfi; Edmund; Landscape with Weapon; Elmina’s Kitchen; The White Guard (National Theatre); Henry VI Parts I, II, and III; Hamlet; Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet; Coriolanus; As You Like It; Cymbeline; Sniger; Henry V (RSC); Our Country is Good (Royal Court); Peter Pan (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Les Liaison Dangereuse (Bristol Old Vic); Of Mice and Men (Birmingham / West End); Caligula; Don Carlos; Othello (Donmar Warehouse); The People are Friendly (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); Moon for the Misgotten (Old Vic); Fool for Love (West End); Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare’s Globe); Three Musketeers (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield).
Opera and musicals include: Porgy and Bess; Martin Guerre; Oliver; Lautrec; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; Billy Elliot the Musical; Fiddler on the Roof; Jerry Springer the Opera; Our House.
Television includes: Broken Glass; A Kind of Innocence; Fell Tiger; The Scold’s Bridle; Fatal Inversion; Nerys Glas; Death of a Salesman; The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; Lucky Jim; Blue Dove; Rock Face.
Movement Director
For the Almeida: Little Revolution; The Turn of The Screw; Filumena; Measure for Measure; When the Rain Stops Falling; Marianne Dreams.
Theatre includes: Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Shakespeare’s Globe);Dirty Butterfly (Young Vic);Hamlet; Blindsided; Cannibals (Royal Exchange Theatre);The Crucible (Old Vic); Arden of Faversham (RSC); Powder her Face (ENO); Penelope (Big Dance 2012); Red Velvet (Tricycle Theatre); One Day When We Were Young; The Sound Of Heavy Rain (Paines Plough at Shoreditch Town Hall); Love, Love, Love; God Bless The Child;The Low Road; A Time to Weep (Royal Court); The Tempest (The Watermill); The Sound of Heavy Rain (Paines Plough / Sheffield Theatres); Persuasion (Salisbury Playhouse); The Missing; An Appointment With the Wicker Man; In Time O’ Strife (National Theatre of Scotland); The History Boys; Macbeth (Sheffield Crucible); Corrie (Lowry & UK Tour), As You Like It; Of Mice And Men (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Romeo and Juliet (Young Shakespeare Company); Snow Queen (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Boiler Room ; Pests (Clean Break); A Doll’s House (Exeter Northcott Theatre); Dido, Queen of Carthage; Edward II (National Theatre); Wuthering Heights (Birmingham Rep); Hooked (Hampstead Theatre); When Five Years Pass (Arcola Theatre); Success (National Theatre with Islington Youth Theatre); Twelfth Night; Masters Are You Mad (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre).
Television includes: Call the Midwife.
Film includes: My Name is Ruthie Segal, Hear me Roar (Jewish Film Festival 2009).
Opera includes: How to Make; Opera and the Little Sweep (Malmo Opera, Sweden).
Casting
For the Almeida: The Knot of the Heart; Through a Glass Darkly; Measure for Measure; When the Rain Stops Falling; In a Dark Dark House; The Homecoming; Nocturne; Awake and Sing!; Dying for It; Out of the Fog.
Other theatre includes: Clybourne Park (Royal Court / West End); The Heretic; Get Santa!; Kin; Red Bud; Tribes; Wanderlust; Spur of the Moment; Sucker Punch; Ingredient X; The Force of Change; Yardgal (Royal Court); Glass Menagerie; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; Annie Get Your Gun; In The Red and Brown Water; Lost Highway; The Good Soul of Szechuan; Tintin; The Skin of our Teeth; Hobson’s Choice; The Daughter-in-law; Homebody Kabul; A Raisin in the Sun; Six Characters Looking for an Author (Young Vic); Arcadia; Swimming with Sharks; As You Like It; Antarctica; The Weir (West End); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End / Sydney Festival); pool (no water) (Frantic Assembly); Gaddafi - A Living Myth (English National Opera); Three Sisters on Hope Street; Anna in the Tropics; Yellowman (Hampstead Theatre); Othello (Cheek by Jowl); The Girl on the Sofa (Edinburgh International Festival / Schaubuhne Theatre, Berlin).
Television includes: Adha Cup; Parliamo Glasgow; Harvest; The Verdict; The Bill; The Badness of George IV.
Julia is a member of the Casting Director’s Guild.
Literal Translator
An Italian speaker Jane translated the original Neapolitan text into literal English.
As a director: Lagan (Oval House Theatre); Spacewang (Hull Truck Theatre).
As an assistant director: The Holy Rosenbergs (National Theatre); Wanderlust; The Empire (Royal Court); Dunsinane (RSC / Hampstead Theatre).
Italian Consultant
Manuela studied as a Theatre Director and Actress (Academy of Dramatic Art Paolo Grassi, Milano), she is a founding member and Head of Education at WOH Productions. She was Head of Drama and Physical Theatre at Teatri Possibili, Roma (2004/8) and Artistic Director of Uranusmoon Theatre Company (2007/9).
As a Director theatre includes: Words of Honour, the Mafia Exposed (Assembly Theatre Edinburgh / Jermyn Street Theatre); Electra (Choreographer); Normal (Theatro Technis); The Rules of the Game (Etcetera Theatre); Parole d’Onore (Teatro Piccolo Eliseo, Roma); Addio Billie Blues (Teatro dell’Orologio); Dorian Gray (Teatro Colosseo); Amleto (Teatri Possibili); Amalek; Macbeth (Teatro della Dodicesima); Billie Blu(es) (Teatro Argot); Mare Amaro (Teatro Paolo Grassi, Milano); Graffi nella Memoria; Notturno di donna con ospiti (Teatro Politeama, Napoli); (S)emidio; GiùdallaCroce (Finalist for Premio Scenario).
As an actress theatre includes: Seventy Angels on the Façade (Teatro Strehler, Milano); Brecht, Nicht so aber so (Piccolo Teatro Studio); Cabaret Brechtiano; Woyzeck; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Macbeth; Nomi; (Teatro Grassi); Polittico Profano (CRT Teatro dell’Arte); Arlecchino, Servitore di due padroni (A.D. Arena del Sole, Bologna); Enrico IV (Teatro di Leo); Luci di Tenebra (Teatro Bellini, Napoli); Prego signora si spogli (Teatro Sannazaro); Don Giovanni (Opera, Teatro Comunale, Pavia).
As an actress television and film includes: Un Posto al Sole (Rai); Centovetrine; Casa Vianello; Le leggende del cuore; Otto per Claude; Onzerodd; Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.
"For a good dose of Neapolitan charm and warmth, you have to head to the Almeida Theatre this spring to see this wonderfully produced revival ... The two lead roles are superbly executed by Samantha Spiro (Filumena) and Clive Wood (Domenico). The chemistry between them is compelling and, while they bring an abundance of comic flair into their roles, they also show the depth and the pain during the mellower moments on stage."
Passion For Theatre
"This new, fresh, slangy version by Tanya Ronder is such a delight ... Samantha Spiro is a treasure as Filumena ... Yet for all the final warmth, Filumena’s bald account of the wartime slum poverty that led her to the brothel is darkly credible: the melting of her survivor’s toughness convinces as a painful release."
The Times
"At the heart of Filumena is Samantha Spiro, a warm and magnetic actor giving a performance of great charm as an illiterate Neapolitan woman with a complicated past … Clive Wood captures the hulking insensitivity of Domenico, while Sheila Reid makes a keen impression as the loyal maid Rosalia."
Evening Standard
"This actress [Samantha Spiro] may be physically small but she fills the stage with an enormous and exciting presence ... Clive Wood is splendid as Domenico ... There is really only one word to describe this production – charming."
Daily Express
Geoffrey Freshwater
Victoria Lloyd
Luke Norris
Emily Plumtree
Sheila Reid
Brodie Ross
Samantha Spiro
Edmund Wiseman
Clive Wood
Writer Eduardo De Filippo
Adaptor Tanya Ronder
Director Michael Attenborough
Design Robert Jones
Lighting Tim Mitchell
Sound John Leonard
Fight Director Terry King
Movement Imogen Knight
Casting Julia Horan
Literal Translator / Assistant Director Jane Fallowfield
Italian Consultant Manuela Ruggiero