West End. The play starred Rob Lowe in the role made famous by Tom Cruise in the film version, which was also written by Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin was very much involved in the casting process. The play ran for several months and was a major success in that year's West End calendar. Beckley was soon cast in David Pownall's play Masterclass for Derby Theatre playing Joseph Stalin's right-hand man Andrei Zhdanov, alongside Christopher McKay (Me and Orson Welles), Russell Dixon and Terry Mortimer. McKay and Mortimer, accomplished pianists, played a real grand piano in their respective roles of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Beckley was also required to play some Chopin while seemingly drunk on vodka, a moment in the play that terrified him each night. Although a pianist, he was not as accomplished as McKay and Mortimer. Nonetheless, reviews were exceptional, with most of the London papers including it in their must-see lists. Beckley continued to enjoy a run of successful and critical theatre roles. He returned to the West End for nearly a year to play Ernst Ludwig in Rufus Norris' wildly successful Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. He played leading man Matt Holden in Chris England's play Breakfast With Jonny Wilkinson for the (then newly successful) Menier Chocolate Factory and would reprise the role in the film version in 2012. One of Beckley's major roles was that of Randle P McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, based on the novel by Ken Kesey, made particularly famous by the film version starring Jack Nicholson (as Randle P McMurphy). The production was staged by Curve in Leicester, with Catherine Russell as Nurse Ratched. Beckley did not even audition for McMurphy but for the role of Dale Harding. However, after the casting process director Michael Buffong decided Beckley was the right man for the part and offered it to him. During the run of Cuckoo's Nest, Curve's artistic director Paul Kerryson offered Beckley the role of Bradley in Sam Shephard's Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child. It starred Olivier Award-winner Matthew Kelly as Dodge. Bradley, the semi-psychotic, one-and-a-half-legged amputee' remains one of Beckley's favourite roles. Kelly and Beckley would work together again in the 5-star hit production of Chekhov's The Seagull for Southward Playhouse in London in 2012. (Beckley credits a student production of this play at NIDA, seen in 1979, as being his catalyst for thinking about acting