Artistic license with Vincent (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Artistic license with Vincent

12:34pm Thursday 5th March 2009 in

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YOUNG actor Mark Edel-Hunt is delighted to have landed a dream role – and he will be bringing it to life at The Haymarket.

Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh moved to England for part of his early life – and his experiences are dramatised in Vincent in Brixton, which is coming to the Basingstoke venue next week.

Having previously missed opportunities to play Vincent, Edel-Hunt – who qualified from RADA 18 months ago – jumped at the opportunity to take the role.

He said: “It was a part I really wanted to play. It’s a daunting thing playing someone who existed and who people have impressions of, but it’s also such a privilege.

“I went to the National Gallery in London and stood in front of the paintings that ‘I’ had painted, and it was a really mad feeling.

“All these people were explaining to their kids about the sunflowers and talking about texture, and I was thinking ‘I painted them!’”.

The play is set in 1873 when van Gogh arrives at 87 Hackford Road, in Brixton, as a young art dealer, where he is drawn to his landlady Ursula, played by Lin Blakley.

Edel-Hunt, who has appeared in BBC1’s Mistresses, said: “It’s a great play, set before he became an artist.

“It’s a period of his life no-one knows for sure what happened, and it sows the seeds of what he becomes later in life.

“The facts are gleaned from letters written to his brother and family, so we know where he lived and have suggestions of what was going on, but there is some artistic licence for the gaps.”

It is the first time the young thespian has worked with director Max Lewendel and co-star Blakley – and one of the play’s challenges is cooking a whole roast dinner live on stage.

“It’s all set in a working kitchen,” said Edel-Hunt, “so the logistics of acting around the timing of a roast is critical.”

Vincent in Brixton is at The Haymarket from March 12 to 14, at 7.30pm, and there is a 2pm matinee on March 14.

Tickets – from £16.50, with concessions available, and the matinee costs £12 – can be booked at the box office, on 01256 844244, or at anvilarts.org.uk.

–Lucie Richards