Gary Oldman will return to his first-ever theater

Gary Oldman will return to the theater where he began his career for his first stage role since the late 1980s.

The Oscar-winning actor will star in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at York Theater Royal next April.

Oldman appeared there in 1979 in plays such as Private on Parade and She Stoops to Conquer – and also played the cat in the pantomime Dick Whittington at Christmas.

“My professional public acting debut was on the stage of the York Theater Royal,” he said. “For me, York is the completion of a circle. It is ‘the place where it all began’. York literally comes home to me.”

The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is “all the more poignant” because it is “a piece about a man returning to his 30-year-old past,” the star added.

After starting out in York, the London-born Oldman played at the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He then moved from theater to film and had his breakthrough in “Sid and Nancy”, “JFK” and “Dracula” by Bram Stoker.

He went on to play Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, won the 2018 Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, and currently stars in the hit Apple TV drama series Slow Horses.

The 66-year-old said he had been thinking about getting back on stage for a while.

“I have never been far from the theater and in fact have been discussing plays and my return to the theater for almost 30 years,” Oldman said.

In March this year he visited the historic York Theater with his family, where he met the venue’s current managing director, Paul Crewes.

“When Gary visited us earlier this year, it was fascinating to hear him tell stories of his time as a young man, in his first professional role on the York Theater Royal stage,” said Crewes.

“As we began exploring ideas around this, we realized that Krapp’s Last Tape was the perfect project.

“I’m delighted that audiences will have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Gary Oldman return to our stage in this brand new production.”

Krapp’s final volume, a one-act play about an old man listening to his younger self via tape recordings, runs from April 14 to May 17, 2025.

Priority booking begins November 6th, public sales begin November 16th.