Alfred Enoch treads the boards that his actor father, William Russell Enoch, trod before him, as he plays Pericles at the RSC’s Swan Theatre
ALFRED Enoch is following in the footsteps of his beloved actor father as he treads the boards of the Royal Shakespeare Company as Pericles.
Press night went ahead last night (Wednesday), and was well received, earning a standing ovation. The show runs at the Swan Theatre until 21st September.
Sadly William Russell Enoch died in June aged 99, so won’t see his son make his debut with the company.
Alfred’s mum, Etheline Margareth Lewis, is a Barbadian Brazilian doctor.
William was well known as one of the assistants to the first Doctor Who (played by William Hartnell in the 1963 launch), and went on to enjoy a long and successful career on stage and screen.
He joined the RSC in 1970 as the Provost in Measure for Measure (with Ian Richardson and Ben Kingsley), Lord Rivers in Norman Rodway’s Richard III and Salisbury in a touring King John, with the title role played by Patrick Stewart.
Returning in 1989, William played Hermia’s father Egeus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; followed by the Ghost to Mark Rylance’s Hamlet. His final role for the company came in 1994 as Pinchard in Peter Hall’s production of Feydeau’s Le Dindon, retitled in translation An Absolute Turkey (it was a success).
There’s a poignancy in Alfred playing Pericles, the bereaved king, and all eyes will be on the 35-year-old as he takes on the demanding titular role. But of course the well-known actor is not exactly a novice. He started in the Harry Potter franchise playing Dean Thomas aged 12, with many successful roles following – including Romeo for the Globe and Wes Gibbins in Netflix smash hit How to Get Away With Murder.
Coincidentally it’s not his first encounter with Pericles – his school, Westminster School, having put on a performance when Alfred was 17.
“It was the first play I ever did,” the actor said last week. “Pericles is not often done, and rarely done as a school play – shout out to Mr Arthur who directed it.
“It was a strange thing to have encountered. To discover this curious and huge play was a real gift.
“Then it gets even stranger to be doing it now, because it’s a play that deals with – among many things – returns and cycles, and things coming back around.”
As the company released rehearsal images last week, another of the creative team was confessing to nerves…
Director Tamara Harvey makes her directing debut for the company with Pericles. Ahead of first night she admitted on Twitter to feeling “whelmed”. Nonetheless she promises boldness.
“Daniel and I are now a year into our tenure,” said the co-artistic director. “In building our first season, we have always come back to the question of ‘why this show and why now’ – of how particular stories, however new or old, might be in conversation with our world today.
“As one of Shakespeare’s late, great plays, Pericles has so much to say about who we are and who we might become; about what it means to be a leader, what it means to love and to lose everything; what it is to navigate a course through adversity and what it takes to keep striving in a desperately fragile world.”
