Ben Barnes abandoned the production this week, telling his fellow actors that he had been offered the title role in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Disney’s £50 million sequel to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
With no time to rehearse a new actor for the role, the National has flown Jamie King, the previous Dakin, in from Los Angeles, where he had been filming the TV docudrama The Tudors with Sam Neill and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
A source close to the production team at Wyndham’s Theatre, where the second revival of The History Boys has been running since December 2006, said: “Ben told everyone that he had been offered a three-film deal to play Caspian. It’s the chance of a lifetime, but the National are furious at him for leaving them in the lurch and are thinking of suing him for breach of contract.”
Barnes had been with The History Boys since 2006, he added. “We’ve all been together for a long time and Ben’s last night was emotional for all of us.”
He arrived back in London midweek. Yesterday, in a break from intensive rehearsals he said: “I’m really happy to be back in The History Boys and am looking forward to playing Dakin again.”
A spokesperson for the National Theatre said yesterday: “Ben Barnes has decided to leave The History Boys early, before his contract is finished. It is something we are taking very seriously. He has accepted an offer to be in a children’s Disney film and we have had to fly Jamie King back at extremely short notice this week.”
She said that the theatre was pleased to bring King back. “He was wonderful, the most handsome Dakin.”
While King settles back into his role, Barnes has the chance to establish himself in a potentially lucrative film franchise. Prince Caspian is the plum remaining role in what the Walt Disney Company hopes will be a seven-film series.
The first installment, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, took more than £350 million at the global box office.
Andrew Adamson, the director, has already said that the four British actors who played the Pevensie children will reprise their roles as Lucy, Ed-mund, Peter and Susan and Liam Neeson will return as the voice of Aslan. Filming is due to begin this month in New Zealand. Disney refused to confirm Barnes’s role.