“Game of Thrones” play “The Mad King” finally launched previews Tuesday night after cancelling its first week of performances.
The first ever run-through of the HBO/Royal Shakespeare Company co-production, which takes place before the events in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series, earned a standing ovation from the enraptured audience.
Addressing the crowd ahead of the show starting, director Dominic Cooke explained that the performance was a world premiere and warned that, because it was a preview, it might be necessary to stop the show in the event of a technical hiccup, in which case the stage manager might come on.
According to local newspaper The Stratford-Upon-Avon Herald, Cooke also said the team hadn’t yet run the entire show through on stage in rehearsals after running out of time and so “he would be seeing it for the first time at the same time as they were.”
However, the performance ran without a hitch and there were no unscheduled show stops during the four-hour performance.
A rep for the RSC said the team had already received “incredible” feedback online and via email, which included praise for the acting, sound, lighting and puppetry.
“It was amazing,” one fan reportedly said. “I loved the set especially the throne. So realistic I felt like I was actually there! The animals particularly the dragon and the horses were so lifelike and the fighting scenes were performed brilliantly. Altogether I feel that I was lucky to be one of the first to see such a masterpiece!”
Another wrote: “The performances were brilliant across the board, despite it being their first night of the production. The puppetry was easily the most impressive i have ever seen on stage.”
The play, which bears the full title of “George R. R. Martin’s Game Of Thrones: The Mad King,” was due to start previews on July 20 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon but, as Variety exclusively reported last week, producers cancelled the first four shows citing “the additional time necessary to progress and refine the work in real time.”
At the time, a rep for the RSC told Variety the Saturday, July 25 preview would go ahead as planned but it was cancelled hours before the performance was due to start.
Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, is a two-hour trip from London and a number of ticket-holders expressed their disappointment online, alleging to have arrived from as far afield as Canada.
In response the RSC has added a handful of extra performances but few tickets are available for the remainder of the show’s two-month run.
The play is officially set to open Aug. 8.
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