Actor will reprise roles in Red Sky At Sunrise: Laurie Lee In Words And Music and A Beautiful Thread: Thomas Hardy In Words And Music at the gloriously ramshackle Wapping venue this September
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I confess I’m a little nervous ahead of my video call with Anton Lesser.
Despite a varied career on screen and stage, the actor is perhaps best known for playing creepy vivisectionist Qyburn in Game Of Thrones and haughty, sinister Major Lio Partagaz in Star Wars telly spin-off Andor (including a brief appearance in Canary Wharf, standing in for the Evil Empire).
In both roles he has the eyes of a man who sees killing as something necessary, if a little distasteful.
Fortunately, it’s all an act.
There’s no indication suspects are awaiting interrogation in holding cells in the basement of his home.
Instead, Anton is twinkly and animated with a joyful enthusiasm as we talk about his forthcoming appearances at Wilton’s Music Hall in Wapping.
Red Sky At Sunrise: Laurie Lee In Words And Music and A Beautiful Thread: Thomas Hardy In Words And Music are coming to the gloriously tumbledown Wapping venue this month (September 2025) with four performances of each.
Presented by Hambletts Productions, the shows follow a similar format – Anton and another actor performing words to tell the stories of each author with a live soundtrack from the Orchestra Of The Swan under the baton of musical director David Le Page.
Anton Lesser, on taking the stage…
“Quite simply, it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done,” said Anton.
“When we’re performing it, I feel that I’m part of a single experience.
“It’s not like doing a play, where you’re in a costume, in make-up and you’ve built a character that’s one element of a production.
“Sometimes I’m sitting on stage, surrounded by musicians – who are totally immersed in their instruments and their skill – and I’m so open and vulnerable because of that.
“It feels inspiring in a way that I’ve never felt with other forms of performance and it’s a great privilege to be part of it.
“The words and the lives that we’re trying to illustrate are so moving, so tender, so wonderful and human that it demands the best of you – the greatest honesty.
“The music the orchestra plays, which underscores beautiful words and poetry just calls you into a different space.
“Hopefully that is transmitted to the audience and I think it is because people who have experienced it have said to me they’ve never seen anything like it before.
“It’s neither pure reading, nor acting, but with an immediacy that comes from the huge emotional impact the music has upon the words, and vice versa, and the interplay we as actors enjoy with the musicians on-stage.”
Red Sky comes to Wilton’s following a successful run at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford-Upon-Avon and a sold-out show at the Wapping venue last year.
Anton takes on the role of Laurie Lee later in life, with Charlie Hamblett playing the author as a younger man as we follow him through Cider With Rosie, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment Of War – a tale that sees him fighting Franco’s fascists with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.
enchanted by the authors
Anton, who initially studied architecture before an epiphany in Nigeria while watching a documentary on the RSC, said: “When I was approached, I think there’s a kind of assumption that everyone has read Cider With Rosie at school or somewhere, but actually I never had.
“I opened that book and I was blown away.
“Then you start to read his other stuff, the short stories and poetry. I thought it was incredible, brilliant, a revelation.
“With Hardy, it was similar. I’d seen one or two films – Tess Of The D’Ubervilles or Far From The Madding Crowd – and read a couple of books.
“The revelation there was his verse. He is the most magnificent poet.
“His poems are little dramas.
“When I first read the volume of collected works he produced, I thought I’d turn down the corners of my favourites.
“I ended up turning down all the corners.
“If you’re familiar with Lee or Hardy and you come and see these shows, you’ll have a wonderful time because there will be things you recognise and adore.
“But if you don’t know their work it will be an absolute revelation.”
Thomas Hardy in words and music
A Beautiful Thread, which has been performed at Stonehenge to much acclaim is an evolution of the form.
Anton, together with recent theatre school graduate Lucia Bonbright bring Hardy to life alongside his mother, Jemima and his wives Emily and Florence as well as George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf and characters from his novels.
Both shows are directed by Hambletts’ Judy Reaves, working alongside writer and adapter Deirdre Shields.
Works by composers such as Vaughan Williams, Walton, Holst, Elgar, Britten, Grainger, Albeniz, Turina and De Falla feature in Red Sky, while audiences will hear from Holst, Warlock and contemporary folk in A Beautiful Thread.
“For me it’s really the joy in the way Judy and Deirdre have constructed these pieces,” said Anton.
“They’re unique in the way we flow in and out of the music and in and out of the characters.
“It’s very unpredictable. The loveliest thing about it is when we seem to inspire the orchestra and the musicians inspire us.
“The relationship is really alive. It’s not a reading followed by some music.
“It’s one thing and it morphs and changes – something that’s very rich and very beautiful.
“David Le Page is the most amazing and wonderful musician – I can’t find the right word to honour him enough.
“I’ll look across while he’s playing some music and he’s completely gone, or he’ll look at me while I’m reading a poem, and afterwards he’ll come up to me and say the same – we’re just absolutely amazed.
“It’s as though we’ve found this great little family.
“My first job was with the RSC and I’ve been very lucky in my career.
“I love it all – the screen, the stage, the audio books.
“But these productions are some of the loveliest things I’ve ever done and I don’t even have to learn lines.”
key details: Anton Lesser at Wilton’s Music Hall
Red Sky At Sunrise: Laurie Lee In Words And Music is set to run at Wilton’s Music Hall from September 15-17, 2025.
It will be followed by A Beautiful Thread: Thomas Hardy In Words And Music from September 18-20, 2025.
Evening performances are at 7pm with a 2pm show on the last day of each run.
Tickets start at £17 with 10% off if both shows are booked together.
Find out more about the productions here
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