George RR Martin announces Game of Thrones prequel The Mad King | Theatre | Entertainment
House of the Dragon is set 200 years before Game of Thrones and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms 100 years prior to the War of the Five Kings.
Now, a third prequel has been announced by A Song of Ice and Fire writer George RR Martin, but this one won’t be on TV.
Set just a decade before Game of Thrones, The Mad King is the first official stage production set in Westeros.
Adapted by Duncan MacMillan, the new play covers the Great Tourney at Harrenhal that led to Robert Baratheon’s Rebellion, when King Aerys II Targaryen was slaughtered and deposed, ending his family’s 300 year reign on the Iron Throne.
The pivotal event features Jon Snow’s parents Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lynn Stark, plus Eddard Stark, who is executed early on in Game of Thrones.
Reacting to the news on his blog, Martin wrote: “You’ve been hearing about the great tourney at Harrenhal since A GAME OF THRONES came out in 1996. Now, at long last, we’re going to show it to you… live, on stage, at Stratford-upon-Avon, brought to you by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Having the RSC bring Westeros to the stage is so incredible that sometimes I fear am dreaming the whole thing.(Yes, it goes without saying that I am a huge Shakespeare fan, and will it likely surprise no one to learn that the history plays are my favourites, and none more so than those set during the Wars of the Roses). Our creative team is incredible as well. The play will be adapted by award-winner Duncan Macmillan (People, Places and Things), and directed by new Almeida Theatre artistic director Dominic Cooke (Good, Follies, The Hollow Crown). Working with them has been as much a thrill as it is an honour.”
The Mad King’s synopsis reads: “Enter the world before. A long winter thaws in Harrenhal, and spring is promised. At a lavish banquet on the eve of a jousting tournament, lovers meet and revellers speculate about who will contend. But in the shadows, amid growing unease at the blood-thirsty actions of the realm’s merciless Mad King, dissenters from his inner circle anxiously advance a treasonous plot. Far away, the drums of battle sound. Family bonds, ancient prophecies, and the sacred line of succession will be tested in a dangerous campaign for power. Who will survive? Who will rise? Wars aren’t won by those with most cause, but whose story’s best told.”
The play will run at the RSC’s Stratford-upon-Avon theatre this summer. Priority tickets go on sale April 14 for RSC members and general booking will follow later that month.
