Game of Thrones stage play The Mad King to premiere at Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Winter is coming again. Another Game of Thrones prequel is headed to the stage: Game of Thrones: The Mad King is slated to premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre this year.

Described as a "powerful drama," the production will span the final years before the events of the novels and reveal a "legendary chapter in Westeros history."

The story opens in Harrenhal as spring approaches. At a lavish banquet just before a jousting tournament, "lovers meet and revellers speculate about who will contend."

But in the shadows, amid growing unease at the bloodthirsty actions of the realm’s merciless Mad King, dissenters from his inner circle "anxiously advance a treasonous plot," while far away "the drums of battle sound."

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