AN actor will take on a range of roles to bring a popular children’s book to life at ho-me and abroad.

Chris Gunter, of Woodland Road, Blackpole, Worcester, is starring in Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans live on stage at the Old Rep The-atre in Birmingham, where he will play a blood-thirsty Roman Centurian, Emperor Julius Caesar and Roman General Suetonius.

After the second city run from Tuesday, October 8, to Saturday, October 19, the 35-year-old will embark upon an exciting tour of the Middle East.

Mr Gunter is particularly looking forward to taking the adaptation of Terry Deary’s work to Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain.

“The Middle East venues are the most exciting as I ha-ve never been. I’ll be interested to see if the audience res-ponse differs.”

Last year, he played King Henry VIII and Prince Albert among others in two other Horrible Histories stage shows, Terrible Tudors and Vile Victorians.

Chris trained at the Uni-versity of Bristol and the Ox-ford School of Drama before making his acting debut at the Dream Factory in Warwick with the Dead Protest Theatre Company’s, Andreas the Hat.

Other roles have seen him star in Histriomastix at the Globe as well as in the Revenger’s Tragedy at Malvern Theatres and Much Ado About Wenlock with the Worcester-based Vamos Theatre Company.

Mr Gunter added: “I’d love to play a Viking overlord in a HBO series which hasn’t been made yet – conquests and fighting, kind of like Game of Thrones but with less dragons and more battle scenes.”

He also runs his own theatre companies in the form of Spanner and the Dank Par-ish.

Each performance in Birmingham will be followed by a question and answer session, so children can ask the actors everything they want to know about Horrible Hist-ories.

To book tickets call the box office on 0121 0121 236 4455, visit the website at birmingham-rep.co.uk or e-mail tickets@birmingham-rep.co.uk.

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