BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Tom’s in deep as a bad boy — again! 

Divisive characters: Tom Burke

Tom Burke, who played ‘bad boy’ Dolokhov in BBC TV’s midwinter monster hit War & Peace, will be playing another not-so-dashing lover at the National Theatre this summer — opposite Helen McCrory.

Burke will star with leading lady McCrory in a revival of Terence Rattigan’s powerful Fifties play The Deep Blue Sea.

It’s about Hester Collyer, wife of a High Court judge, who abandons her husband and comfortable lifestyle to live in a dank West London flat with Freddie Page, a former RAF World War II fighter pilot who hates himself because he returned home while his comrades didn’t.

Hester becomes obsessed with Page because of his sexual prowess, but he fails her emotionally.

Burke described the play as being about people ‘staring into an abyss’ — and not knowing what to do about it .

‘Page seems to me to be permanently in transit: on the run from sitting still and thinking about anything for too long. He’s also terrified of silence,’ mused Burke, who is appearing in Neil LaBute’s new play Reasons To Be Happy at Hampstead Theatre.

That runs until April 23, by which time he will have started rehearsing The Deep Blue Sea, which will begin previews at the Lyttelton from June 1. 

Burke observed that most of the characters in Rattigan’s play are ‘damaged’ and ‘brave about getting out of bed in the morning’.

Director Carrie Cracknell has assembled a cracking company. Peter Sullivan will play Hester’s hubby Sir William, and Marion Bailey (so good in Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner) will play the lovers’ landlady. Hubert Burton and Adetomiwa Edun are also in the cast.

Burke said he read part of the play with McCrory. He stressed, however, it wasn’t a ‘chemistry meeting, to suss out whether there was, well, chemistry’.

In any event, he insisted, it comes down to a question of trust, not chemistry. ‘It’s trust; and just listening to each other,’ he told me.

Burke said Freddie is not nearly such a ‘bad boy’ as Dolokhov, who had ‘total disregard for what one would call the norms of society — marriage, fidelity’.

He added: ‘It’s a funny thing to play someone who will divide sympathies. I think: “Should I be trying harder to be nice — or nicer?! Or am I doing the job?” ’

Tom Hiddleston played Freddie opposite Rachel Weisz in the most recent film version of The Deep Blue Sea, in which Simon Russell Beale played the judge.

Theatre knights Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart have taken millions at the box office, months before they open in one of Harold Pinter’s classic plays.

The two stars will do a short tour of Pinter’s No Man’s Land in August, before it heads into Wyndham’s Theatre from September 8.

So far it has sold more than £2 million worth of tickets at Wyndham’s - and close to £1.2 million for the tour, which starts on August 3 at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield.

After that, the play, about a poet and a writer who meet in Hampstead, will visit the Theatre Royal, Newcastle (from August 15); Theatre Royal Brighton (from August 22), and Cardiff’s New Theatre (from August 29).

The director, Sean Mathias, has just added actor Owen Teale (of Game of Thrones) to the cast. He will play Briggs, one of two henchmen employed by Hirst, Stewart’s character.

McKellen and Stewart appeared together in No Man’s Land on Broadway, but these are the first UK shows.

Pinter plays are very much in the news, what with director Matthew Warchus’s sublime version of The Caretaker, which features knockout performances by Timothy Spall, Daniel Mays and George MacKay.

All three actors get right under your skin; and MacKay’s performance is (to my mind) the moment that marks him as a major actor.

I’ve been observing his work for several years, and he is now more than ready to tackle some of the top flight classical and modern theatre roles. 

All singing, dancing and acting — Danny steals the Show Boat

Danny Collins was described to me as a ‘triple threat’.

That’s not because he’s dangerous, but because he’s a top-notch dancer who can act and sing, as London audiences will discover when the terrific Sheffield Theatre production of Show Boat begins previews at the New London Theatre tomorrow.

Collins, from North-West London, plays song-and-dance man Frank Schultz, and partners with Alex Young, who plays Ellie May Chipley.

The two are somewhat down the cast list from the leads, played by Rebecca Trehearn, Gina Beck, Malcolm Sinclair, Chris Peluso, Lucy Briers, Emmanuel Kojo and Sandra Marvin. I’ve seen many productions and, frankly, the role of Schultz doesn’t normally even register. But in Sheffield, he nearly stole the show.

Danny Collins from North-West London, plays song-and-dance man Frank Schultz, and partners (pictured) with Alex Young, who plays Ellie May Chipley

Daniel Evans, who directs, said: ‘He’s a serious triple threat, because in this he’s absolutely hilarious, as well as having an elastic body — and a rubber face. His body moves with the music on its own. There’s a history of dancers who have crossed over to all-round performing, and he’s a major example,’ continued Evans, the artistic chief at Sheffield who will be moving to Chichester’s Festival Theatre this summer.

Evans’s views were echoed by dance supremo Matthew Bourne. Collins has danced with Bourne’s New Adventures company for several years.

He and his siblings used to play-act when they were kids, presenting their own shows. Danny was soon attending ballet lessons.

‘When the film of Billy Elliot opened, I remember thinking: “That’s me!”, although I’m from a London borough,’ he said.

Evans is such a big fan that he has allowed Collins to take the role of Dr Jekyll in Drew McOnie’s Jekyll & Hyde, which will have a brief run at the Old Vic from May 20 to May 28. He will perform in Show Boat until he’s needed at the Old Vic (although he’ll give matinees a miss while he’s rehearsing with McOnie’s troupe).

Keep an eye on the name Danny Collins. This all singing, all dancing, all acting guy is going places.

A horse-drawn carriage — and a flying sports car — in a panto at the London Palladium? Oh no there isn’t. Oh yes there is! 

After a 30-year break, panto is returning to the Palladium. Michael Harrison, who will direct the ‘spectacular production’ of Cinderella with choreographer Andrew Wright, told me it will have the feel of an original show and be ‘stuffed’ with stars. 

The Qdos Entertainment effort will have a five-week run at the Palladium from December 9.