Audiences didn’t know Happy Valley star James Norton would be naked in A Little Life
James Norton has surprised Happy Valley fans by taking his kit off in his new West End show A Little Life.
It wasn’t clear that Norton would be revealing all ahead of the show opening, it has been revealed. Speaking to The Times, A Little Life director Ivo van Hove said: “But people didn’t know that before they ordered tickets because they were all sold out before we started rehearsals.”
Normally when stars bare all on stage it becomes big news prior to the show opening. When Daniel Radcliffe took his clothes off in Equus in 2008 it had become a big news story long before the show had even opened.
Norton, 37, is only naked for around 40 seconds in the show, but the scene has become famous after the Daily Mail published leaked photos of Norton naked taken by an audience member.
The paper removed the photos after audience members and the theatre community criticised the publication of the images, which were taken without consent by an audience member, which is against the rules stipulated by the show.
A Little Life, published in 2015 by the American author Hanya Yanagihara follows four college friends in New York City. It features conversations and scenes involving suicide, sexual abuse, trauma and rape.
Norton plays the lead, the tragic Jude, a litigator in New York with a mysterious past.
A Little Life runs at the Savoy Theatre until 18 June 2023 and also stars It’s A Sin’s Omari Douglas.
Ivo van Hove is one of the most well respected, visionary theatre directors working on both side of the Atlantic. He won the Olivier Award for Best Director for A View From the Bridge in 2015 and is known to be one of the most experimental and avant-garde directors working.
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