RSC Game of Thrones play will be 'immersive'

A new Game of Thrones play at the Royal Shakespeare Company will be a "really immersive" experience, the theatre's co-artistic director Tamara Harvey has said.

The production, titled Game of Thrones: The Mad King, will be set 10 years before the events of the TV series and is based on new material from Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin.

Harvey said that when the theatre, in Stratford upon Avon, was contacted with the idea "it felt like a brilliant marriage", adding there were lots of parallels between Game of Thrones and Shakespeare's history plays.

"You've got family dynamics, you've got succession, you've got battles for power, you've got love stories, it's all there," she said.

Harvey explained the first contact came from producers Tim Lawson and Simon Painter, along with director Dominic Cooke. A script then followed from Duncan Macmillan.

The story will start with a tournament at Harrenhal castle and then follow Robert's rebellion.

Harvey said that for fans, the most thrilling part would possibly be "living and breathing the same space as these characters".

Throughout the play, she said, the audience would see "familiar faces from all the houses" and some new characters too.

It was especially exciting that Lyanna Stark, a character who made just a brief appearance in the TV series, would get a bigger role in the stage show, she said.

Harvey said: "The wonderful thing about theatre is that it's really immersive, so you're going to be in that world."

She added that while the RSC had a history of creating epic battles, "anything that's of this scale and... truly epic takes a while to bring to the stage".

For that reason, she said, the play had been a "long time in development", but tickets were due to go on sale to RSC members in April, with the show beginning its run in the summer.

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