By Anton Chekhov | a new version by Robert Icke
Directed By Robert Icke
Tickets £10 - £38
Things your life could be:
(1) a farce. (2) a tragedy. (3) pointless. (4) all of the above.
Things you could do about it:
(1) keep living. (2) stop living. (3) stop someone else living. (4) nothing.
Even so, what has your life been worth?
Chekhov's late masterpiece examines human behaviour in all of its beautiful, terrible, laughable contradiction. Following his reimagining of Oresteia (Almeida / West End), Almeida Associate Director Robert Icke (2015 Evening Standard Theatre Award Winner - Best Director for Oresteia) directs a new production of Chekhov's greatest play. Paul Rhys makes his Almeida debut in the title role.
Previews Fri 5 Feb - Thu 11 Feb
Press Night 7pm Fri 12 Feb
Evenings 7.30pm
Sat matinees 2.30pm from 20 Feb
Wed matinees 2.30pm on 17, 24 Feb & 2, 9, 16, 23 Mar
Talkback
Mon 7 Mar
Post-show discussion with members of the Uncle Vanya company. With live speech-to-text transcription by Stagetext.
Supporters' Evening Mon 14 Mar
Captioned Performance
Mon 7 Mar 7.30pm
Audio Described Performances
by VocalEyes
Sat 12 Mar 2.30pm
(Touch Tour at 12.45pm)
Fri 18 Mar 7.30pm
(Touch Tour at 6pm)
Listen to the Winter 2015/16 Audio Brochure here.
Islington First
5 - 13 Feb
If you live or work in the Islington area you can book best available seats for £23 for the opening performances* of each production.
Under 30s
If you are aged 29 or under you can book best available seats for £19 for Monday performances*. To book online select the UNDER30 price type at the seating plan. Proof of age will be required when collecting the tickets.
*Subject to availability
Click here for more information about Concessions.
For the Almeida: Oresteia (also West End).
Television includes: Jamaica Inn; Labyrinth; Black Mirror; Downton Abbey; Misfits; The Outcast.
Film includes: Frankenstein; The Riot Club; Winter's Tale; Albatross; Lullaby.
Theatre includes: A Streetcar Named Desire; Three Sisters (Young Vic); Edward II; Women Beware Women (National Theatre); The Acid Test (Royal Court); As You Like It (West Yorkshire Playhouse); A Midsummer Night’s Dream; All My Sons; Ghosts (Octagon Theatre, Bolton).
Television includes: The Crown; The Frankenstein Chronicles; Great Expectations; The Hour; Labyrinth.
Film includes: Genius; Me Before You; The Dresser; Everest; Jupiter Ascending; Kill Command; Queen and Country; About Time; The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.
For the Almeida: Our Town.
Theatre includes: We Could Be Heroes (Bridewell Theatre / Yvonne ArnaudTheatre); Northanger Abbey (Greenwich Theatre); Rat in the Skull (Theater Exchange,USA); Hamlet; As You Like It; “Master Harold” …and the Boys (HaymarketBasingstoke);Amadeus; King Lear; Juno and the Paycock (New Victoria Theatre).
Television includes: Father Brown; Millie Inbetween; Casualty; Trollied; Remember Me; All at Sea; By Any Means; Little Crackers; Vexed; Life of Riley; Summer in Transylvania; The Catherine Tate Show; Garrow’s Law; Grown Ups; U Be Dead; EastEnders; Disconnected; Suburban Shootout; Party Animals; Sugar Rush; Croydon Poisonings; Love Soup; People Like Us; Wonderful You; Is It Legal?; Hornblower; Coogan’s Run; Waterfront Beat; The Sharp End; First of the Summer Wine.
Film includes: Downhill; Heart of Lightness; Sightseers; City Slackers; Morris: A Life With Bells On; Atilla the Hun; Silent Cry; Room to Rent; The Avengers; Sense and Sensibility.
Radio includes: Clare in the Community.
As a writer: Wonderful You (ITV); We Could Be Heroes (Bridewell Theatre /Yvonne Arnaud / Arts Theatre); five plays for Radio 4 including The Six Loves of Billy Binns; Man in the Moon (shortlisted for a Society of Authors TinniswoodAward) and John Dodd Gets Taken for a Ride (shortlisted for a Society of AuthorsImison Award).
Theatre includes: The Cocktail Party (The Print Room); The Keepers of Infinite Space (Park Theatre); Timon of Athens; Caroline, or Change (National Theatre); The Kreutzer Sonata (Gate Theatre / Broadway); End of the Rainbow (Theatre Royal, Northampton / Trafalgar Studios / Tour); Experimentum Mundi (Edinburgh International Festival); Rock ‘n’ Roll (Manchester Library Theatre); The Oresteia (Fisher Centre for Performing Arts); Weapons of Happiness (Finborough Theatre); They Have Oak Trees in North Carolina (Tristan Bates); The Patriot (Tron Theatre); Rabbit (Old Red Lion / Broadway Festival); Comedy of Errors (Sheffield Crucible Theatre); Hamlet (Theatre Royal, Northampton); The Tempest (Southwark Playhouse); Peer Gynt (Arcola Theatre); My One and Only (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End); Mamma Mia; Les Miserables; Miss Saigon (West End); The Front Page (Donmar Warehouse); Othello (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); Hedda Gabler (Royal Exchange Theatre); Macbeth (Dundee Repertory Theatre); Les Liaisons Dangereuses; As You Like It; Merchant of Venice (RSC); Hamlet (New Shakespeare Company).
Television includes: Endeavour; New Tricks; Injustice; Zen; The Execution of Gary Glitter; Lewis; Doctors; Holby City; Frances Tuesday; Silent Witness; Midsomer Murders; Serious and Organised; Baby Father; The Justice Game; Max Headroom.
Film includes: The Sense of an Ending; Macbeth; Far From the Madding Crowd; Serena; Power of Three; Red Riding Trilogy; Stroke of Genius; Mansfield Park; Greystroke: Legend of Tarzan; Return of the Jedi; French Lieutenant’s Woman.
For the Almeida: The Fever; Cloud Nine; Platonov.
Theatre includes: The Recruiting Officer (Donmar Warehouse); Decade (Headlong); The Children's Hour (Harold Pinter Theatre); King Lear (Liverpool Playhouse/ Young Vic); The Hush; History Boys (National Theatre); Cherry Orchard (Sheffield Theatre); Hamlet (Theatre Royal, Northampton); Three Sisters (Playhouse Theatre); Arcadia (Theatre Royal, Northampton/ Salisbury Playhouse); Light (Complicite); The Way of the World (Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Colonel Bird (Gate Theatre).
Television includes: The Night Manager; Outlander; Catastrophe; The Honourable Woman; Game of Thrones; The Shadow Line; Rome; Black Mirror; The Thick of It; Any Human Heart; Getting On; Eternal Law; Persuasion; Pulling; Spooks; The Relief of Belsen; A Very Social Secretary; Longitude.
Film includes: Underworld: Next Generation; Black Bird; Black Sea; Hysteria; Forget Me Not; The Duel; Atonement; Casino Royale; Pierrepoint; Finding Neverland; The Lowdown.
Theatre includes: Three Sisters (Young Vic); La Fausse Suivante (Bouffes du Nord Theatre, Paris / European Tour); The Importance of Being Earnest (Various Companies); Pygmalion; The Schoolmistress (Chichester Festival Theatre).
Television includes: Kingdom; The Romantics; Doctors; Harry and the Wrinklies; Sum of the Parts; Midsomer Murders; The Rag Nymph; Jeeves and Wooster.
Film includes: Remainder; Vigilante; Ashes; Untitled; City of Ember; Irina P; Mrs Henderson Presents; Smilla’s Sense of Snow; Jane Eyre.
Theatre includes: The Master and Margarita (Complicite); Paul; Measure for Measure; The Invention of Love; King Lear; Bent (National Theatre); Hamlet (Young Vic / Japan); Long Day's Journey Into Night (Young Vic); Design For Living (Donmar Warehouse); The Government Inspector (Compass Theatre); Ghetto (Riverside Studios); Much Ado About Nothing; The Merchant of Venice (RSC); The Orphan (Greenwich Theatre); La Vie Parisienne; A Woman of No Importance (Glasgow Citizens Theatre); Bouncers (Yorkshire Actors).
Television includes: Victoria; Casanova; Turn: Washington's Spies; The Assets; Borgia; Da Vinci's Demons; Great Expectations; Moving On; Marple; Luther; Being Human; The Queen; Spooks; Bonekickers; Poirot; Beethoven; Murder in Rome; The Deal; Echoes; The Lives of Animals; The Cazalets; The Innocent; I Saw You; Anna Karenina; Wings of Angels; King Lear; Dance to the Music of Time; The Healer; Summer's Day Dream; Gallowglass; 102 Boulevard Haussman; The Opium Eaters; Heroes; William Golding Special; Tumbledown; My Family and Other Animals.
Film includes: Eliminate Archie Cookson; The 10 Commandments; Deader; Food of Love; From Hell; Love Lies Bleeding; Nina Takes a Lover; Chaplin; Colette; Vincent and Theo; A Bird Poised to Fly; Spirit; Little Dorrit; Lion Heart; Absolute Beginners; Rebecca's Daughters.
Paul received the 2005 Critic's Circle Award for Best Actor in Measure for Measure, a BAFTA for Best Actor for The Healer in 1995, the 1999 TMA Award for Best Actor in Hamlet, and an Olivier Nomination for Best Supporting Actor in King Lear.
For the Almeida: Celebration (also Lincoln Center, New York).
Theatre includes: Vast White Stillness (Spitalfields Music Festival); What the Women Did (Southwark Playhouse); Lay Down Your Cross (Hampstead Theatre); Pinter in Havana; Snake in the Grass (The Print Room); The Importance of Being Earnest (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Harold Pinter Celebration; Pinter Sketches – The Black and White (National Theatre); Don’t Look Now (Sheffield Theatres / Lyric Hammersmith); Tonight at 8:30 (Chichester Festival Theatre); Playhouse Creatures; Office Suite (West Yorkshire Playhouse); A Family Affair (Tour); The Price (Bristol Old Vic); Collateral Damage (Tricycle Theatre); Three Sisters (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); The Deep Blue Sea (Royal Exchange, Manchester).
Television includes: The Jewel in the Crown; Lewis; Doctors; Poirot; Cat Among the Pigeons; Pinochet’s Progress; Eleventh Hour; The Brief; 20,000 Streets Under the Sky; The Commander; The Courtroom; The Last Detective; Midsomer Murders; Heartbeat; Mrs Bradley Mysteries; Underworld; Kavanagh QC; Preston Front; Bad Company.
Film includes: Hope and Glory; Don’t Miss the Cup; The Lady; Tamara Drewe; Flood; The Hummingbird Tree; Just Like a Woman; Afraid of the Dark; Twenty-One; The Pied Piper; How to Get Ahead in Advertising; Bye Bye Blues; Loyalties; Dead Man’s Folly; Frankenstein; The Shout; Butley.
Susan won the ALVA Award for Best Actress and received a BAFTA nomination for The Jewel in the Crown. She also won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for Hope and Glory. Susan’s first novel, The Hidden Dance, was published in 2009 and received The Big Red Read Award for Best Debut Novel 2010.
Version/ Direction
Robert is the Associate Director of the Almeida.
For the Almeida: The Odyssey; The Iliad; Oresteia (also West End); The Fever; Mr Burns; 1984 (also West End / National Tour).
Theatre includes: Boys; Romeo and Juliet; Decade (Headlong); The Alchemist (Liverpool Playhouse).
Robert was Associate Director of Headlong from 2010-2013, Artistic Director of the Arden Theatre Company in Stockton-on-Tees from 2003-2007 and of the Swan Theatre Company in Cambridge from 2005-2008, where he was awarded the Susie Gautier-Smith Prize for his contribution to theatre. His production of 1984 (which he co-adapted and directed with Duncan Macmillan) won Best Director at the UK Theatre Awards and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Play. Robert was selected as one of the Hospital Club’s 100 most influential people working across Britain’s creative industries in 2014.
Set
For the Almeida: Oresteia(also West End); Rosmersholm; The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (also West End).
Theatre includes: Waste; A Taste of Honey; Scenes from an Execution; After The Dance; Harper Regan; The Hour we Knew Nothing of Each OtherThe Hothouse; Therese Raquin; Exiles; Iphigenia at Aulis; The Merchant of Venice; Richard II; King Lear (National Theatre) Primo (National Theatre / Broadway); Good People; Passion Play; Old Times; Top Hat (also world tour); The Sunshine Boys (also Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles); Arcadia (West End / Broadway); Blithe Spirit; The Misanthrope; The Crucible; Hedda Gabler; The Master Builder (West End); Teddy Ferrara; Roots; Trelawny of the Wells (Donmar Warehouse); Cause Celebre; All About My Mother;Richard II (Old Vic); The Seagull (Royal Court / Broadway); Now or Later; Krapp’s Last Tape; Terrorism;My Name is Rachel Corrie (also New York); Blasted (Royal Court); Electra (RSC);The Jewish Wife (Young Vic).
Television and film includes: Primo; Krapp’s Last Tape.
Opera includes: La finta giardiniera (Santa Fe Opera); La Traviata (Glyndebourne Opera Festival); The Makropulos Case (Edinburgh International Festival / Opera North); The Damnation of Faust(ENO / De Vlaamse / Teatro Massimo, Palermo).
Hildegard received an Olivier Award in 2011 for her design of After the Dance. She received an Olivier Award nomination for Top Hat and a nomination for the Evening Standard Best Designer Award in 2011 for Iphigenia at Aulis. She also won the 2009 Australian Green Room Award for Best Opera Design for Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Sydney Opera House. She is currently designing the upcoming world premiere of Thomas Ades' The Exterminating Angel at Salzburg, the ROH and The Met.
Costume
Theatre includes: One for the Road (Royal and Derngate); The Holy Rosenbergs (National Theatre); Another Door Closed (Theatre Royal Bath); Endgame (Liverpool Everyman); Dangerous Corner (West Yorkshire Playhouse / West End); Frankenstein (Frantic Assembly, Northampton); Burial at Thebes (Nottingham Playhouse / Barbican / US Tour).
Ballet includes: Rhapsody (Royal Opera House).
Jessica trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course and has designed for Chester Performs since 2012.
Light
Jackie Shemesh is a lighting designer who has worked internationally in dance, theatre, opera and with performance and visual artists.
For the Almeida: Parallax; Rabbits; It Needs Horses; Home for Broken Turns (also Lost Dog).
Theatre includes: IslandsThe Beloved (Bush Theatre); Oh My Sweet Land; In the Penal Colony; Man (Young Vic); The Communist Bigamist(Hebbel Theatre, Berlin); As You Like It (Curve Theatre, Leicester); Ramayana (Lyric Hammersmith / Bristol Old Vic).
Dance includes: American Boy;Be Like Water; Ten (Hetain Patel); May Contain Food;Border Tales; L.O.L.; Dear Body (Luca Silvestrin’s Protein Dance Company); The Murmuring; Young Men (The Ballet Boyz); Beheld; Let’s Talk about Dis (Candoco Dance Company); Girl A (Scottish Dance Theatre / Ben Duke); Lunatic (National Dance Company of Wales); Disclose (Introdans Company, Holland).
Music, opera and performance include: The Magic Flute (80WSE NYC / Cheap Kollectiv); True Finn IHMI Helsinki); Wenn Ihr Wollt Ist Es Traum (Secession Vienna); Recital for Cathy (Hamburg Symphony Orchestra); From Canyons to Stars (Jeffrey Tate/Daniel Landau); Tutbu TV (Hebbel Theatre); Sante (London Symphony Orchestra).
It Needs Horses won the Place Prize in 2010.
Jackie trained at the Jerusalem School of Visual Theatre.
Sound
For the Almeida: Before the Party; A Delicate Balance; Mrs Klein.
Theatre includes: Hangmen (Royal Court / West End); Evening At The Talkhouse; Husbands & Sons; The Red Lion; Rules For Living; A Taste Of Honey; After The Dance (National Theatre); Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time (National Theatre / West End / Broadway / UK Tour); The River (Broadway); Love’s Sacrifice (RSC); The Nether (Royal Court / West End); The Days The Nights The Wounds & The Night (Linbury ROH); To Kill A Mockingbird; A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regents Park); The Weir (Donmar Warehouse / West End).
Ian has extensive sound design credits to his name and was fortunate enough to win both an Olivier and Drama Desk Award for his work on Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He has been a member of the Autograph design team since 2009.Autograph is responsible for the UK supply and/or design of numerous theatre productions including The Bodyguard, Les Misérables, Wicked, Mamma Mia!, Matilda, Book Of Mormon, Jersey Boys, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, War Horse, and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.
Casting
For the Almeida: Medea: Oresteia (also West End); Game; Mr Burns; Chimerica (also West End); Before the Party; The Turn of the Screw; King Lear; Children’s Children; Filumena; The Knot of the Heart; Through a Glass Darkly; Measure for Measure; When the Rain Stops Falling; In a Dark Dark House; The Homecoming; Nocturne; Awake and Sing!; Dying for It; Out of the Fog.
Theatre includes: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (West End); Hamlet (Barbican); Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Hammersmith / Lyceum Theatre); The Trial; Ah, Wilderness!; Man; A View from the Bridge (Young Vic / West End / Broadway); Happy Days; Public Enemy; The Shawl; Blackta; Wild Swans; After Miss Julie; The Government Inspector; The Glass Menagerie; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; Annie Get Your Gun; In The Red and Brown Water; Lost Highway;The Good Soul of Szechuan (Young Vic); A Doll’s House (Young Vic / West End / BAM); The Nether; Adler & Gibb; Birdland; The Mistress Contract; Khandan; The Pass; Gastronauts; Clybourne Park; The Heretic; Get Santa!; Kin; Red Bud; Tribes; Wanderlust; Spur of the Moment; Sucker Punch; Ingredient X (Royal Court); Martyr; The Events; The Golden Dragon; Bad Jazz; A Brief History of Helen of Troy (ATC); Spring Awakening; The Seagull; Edward Gant’s Amazing Feat of Loneliness (Headlong); Another Country (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End); The Winslow Boy (Old Vic); A Chorus of Disapproval; South Downs / The Browning Version; Absent Friends; Backbeat; Arcadia; Swimming with Sharks; As You Like It; Antarctica; The Weir (West End); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End / Sydney Festival); Pool (no water) (Frantic Assembly); Gaddafi; A Living Myth (English National Opera); Othello (Cheek by Jowl); The Girl on the Sofa (Edinburgh International Festival / Schaubuhne Theatre, Berlin).
Film includes: The Kaiser’s Last Kiss; Departure; Adha Cup; Parliamo Glasgow; Harvest.
Jula is an Associate Artist at the Young Vic.
Assistant Direction
As Director, theatre includes: Play 7 (Old Red Lion); Don’t Laugh (Cockpit Theatre); The Plant (24:7 Theatre Festival); On a Quiet Street in Bolton; Letters over Lunch; Poetry on a Plate (Octagon, Bolton); Apathy (ALRA North).
As Assistant Director, theatre includes: The Ancient Secret of Youth and the Five Tibetans; Private Lives (Octagon, Bolton); Our Town (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).
★★★★★ a reminder that there never was anything more remarkable than life itself
Time Out
★★★★ Every second is made to count in Robert Icke’s intelligent, sensitive adaptation of Chekhov
The Stage
★★★★ A woozy motion, with moments of high intensity. This goes to the heart of Chekhov
The Observer
The running time is approximately three hours and 20 minutes including three ten-minute intervals. This production features smoking and strobe lighting. Latecomers will only be admitted during intervals. Please contact Box Office if you would like further information.
Jessica Brown Findlay
Vanessa Kirby
Richard Lumsden
Hilton McRae
Tobias Menzies
Ann Queensberry
Paul Rhys
Susan Wooldridge
Version/Direction Robert Icke
Set Hildegard Bechtler
Costume Jessica Curtis
Light Jackie Shemesh
Sound Ian Dickinson for Autograph
Casting Julia Horan CDG
Assistant Direction Jocelyn Cox
Costume Supervision Rachel Dickson
Fight Direction Kevin McCurdy