David Tennant On 'Delicious' Don Juan & Keeping The Play Topical



David Tennant says that he and playwright Patrick Marber intend to keep their new staging of Don Juan In Soho as topical as possible. David was speaking to press following the official first night performance of the play last night.

Patrick Marber's updating of the original 17th Century play Don Juan by Molière was first performed in 2006 with Rhys Ifans in the lead role, but Marber, who also directs the revival, is constantly tweaking the production to include topical jokes.


"We are sprinkling occasional contemporary references as we go," David explained. "We add them on the day. Prince George is in his third day now. George Osborne lasted for a weekend. Donald Trump is in there. Obviously it has to relate to Don Juan and his world view. He's got this fury about the hypocrisy of the world that he's in."

David added that it hasn't been difficult to find new material. "The world keeps presenting itself with fresh material and we can't really resist," he said. But although references to Vlogging and President Trump's 'locker room' comments on women have made the cut, a line referencing the Daily Mail's sexist Legs-It headline didn't make it into the show. "We chickened out at the last second," David confessed.

Don Juan In Soho is the first play that David has performed on stage since the 2005 production of Look Back In Anger that was not written by Shakespeare. He says that he is enjoying the differences: "It's a delicious role. I adore Shakespeare - I feel like it's in my DNA - but I'm just loving doing something that is this contemporary and that has this bite and extraordinary language."

David confesses that he enjoys playing DJ so much that he stays in charcter during the curtain call, shoving co-star Adrian Scarborough out of the way to claim the applause.


“There are two curtain calls so I get to do one as Don Juan and one as me which I quite like," he said. “He has a lot less inhibitions than I have so it’s quite nice to enjoy that for a few seconds longer.”



Don Juan In Soho runs at Wyndhams Theatre in London until 10th June. Visit www.donjuaninsoho.com for more detail and tickets. 




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