The great Australian actor will appear in Eamon Flack’s upcoming Chekhov production.

The doyen of Shakespeare in Australia may have stepped down from the top spot of his theatre company, but John Bell is far from done with the stage. The 74-year-old actor and former Artistic Director of Bell Shakespeare has just been announced as part of the cast of Eamon Flack’s upcoming production of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov for Belvoir St Theatre.

Opening in September, Bell will be playing the role of Matthew Shabelsky, the buffoonish, geriatric uncle of the play’s central protagonist, Nikolai Ivanov, due to be portrayed in Belvoir’s production by Ewen Leslie. This will be the first time Bell has appeared at theatre in Sydney’s Surry Hills since he played Prospero in Neil Armfield’s production of The Tempest in 1990.

However, due to Bell’s extremely crowded schedule, the auspicious casting very nearly fell through. The Shakespearian expert will be directing his own production of The Tempest, at the same time as Flack’s Chekhov rehearsals are due to be in full swing. So significant is the overlap between the two shows in fact, that Bell Shakespeare’s Tempest at the Sydney Opera House closes just one day before Ivanov open’s at...