Full Cast Announced for Stage Adaptation of BEN HUR

Full casting is announced today for Ben Hur - Tim Carroll directs Alix Dunmore, Richard Durden, John Hopkins and Ben Jones. The production opens on 24 November, with previews from 19 November, and runs until 9 January 2016.

They said it was unachievable!

They said it couldn't be done!

But now the team behind the Olivier and Tony Award-winning comedy The 39 Steps are back with a sensational, awe-inspiring and unforgettable staging of General 'Lew' Wallace's timeless classic Ben Hur.

The greatest book ever penned is brought to the stage by a towering team of just four actors, turning the Tricycle stage into one of the most authentic versions of ancient Rome ever seen. Complete with stunning combat (featuring the latest 3D technology), a 103% bona fide chariot race (with REAL CHARIOTS), an authentic sea battle (with REAL WATER) and a decadent and UNEXPURGATED Roman orgy (suitable for all ages), Ben Hur is the perfect winter tonic guaranteed to stir your very soul.

Patrick Barlow returns to the Tricycle where his adaptation of The 39 Steps opened in 2006 and in the same year transferred to the Criterion Theatre where it played for nine years. In 2007, it transferred to Broadway and has since played in over thirty-nine countries world-wide. He won an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, while in the United States, he co-won the Drama Desk Award and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. The 39 Steps won a Molière Award for Best Comedy in France, and a Helpmann Award for Best Comedy in Australia. Barlow's adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol will have its West End debut this Christmas at the Noel Coward Theatre starring Jim Broadbent as Scrooge. Barlow is perhaps most renowned for his two-man National Theatre of Brent, which he created in 1980, and in which he plays Artistic Director and Chief Executive Desmond Olivier Dingle. The company's legendary two-man epics have been performed on stage, radio and television and include The Charge of the Light Brigade, Zulu! The Black Hole of Calcutta, Wagner's Ring Cycle, The Messiah, The Wonder of Sex, French Revolution!, Massive Landmarks of the Twentieth Century, The Complete and Utter History of the Mona Lisa, The Charles and Diana Story, The Arts and How They was Done, Iconic Icons and most recently, Giant Ladies Who Changed the World. They have won two Sony Radio Academy Awards, a Premier Ondas and New York Festival Award for Best Comedy. His other writing for film and television includes The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Christopher Columbus, Queen of the East, The Judgment of Paris, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, Van Gogh and The Young Visiters.

Alix Dunmore's theatre credits include: The 39 Steps (Criterion Theatre), What The Women Did (Southwark Playhouse), Gaslight (New Vic, Newcastle-Under-Lyme), London Wall (St James Theatre), Top Girls(Out of Joint), Nature Adores a Vacuum (Soho Theatre), Separate Tables (Mill at Sonning) The Two Noble Kinsmen (Bristol Old Vic). For television, her work includes Call the Midwife; and for film, London Wall. Dunmore is a founder member of the Fitzrovia Radio Hour.

Richard Durden returns to the Tricycle where he previously appeared in Ugly Rumours. His other theatre work includes Titus Andronicus, A Mad World My Masters (RSC), Hindle Wakes (Finborough Theatre),The Emperor And Gallilean (National Theatre), Once Bitten, The Madras House (Orange Tree Theatre), Shadowlands (tour and West End), Richard III and High Society (Sheffield Crucible), Orpheus Descending(Donmar Warehouse), Birdy (Comedy Theatre), Casablanca (Whitehall Theatre), Hamlet (Old Vic) and All My Sons (Wyndham's Theatre). For television, his work includes Dickensian, Wolf Hall, Episodes, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Silk, World Without End, The Borgias, The Last Days of the Lehman Brothers, Spooks, Confessions of a Diary Secretary; Nuremburg, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Fingersmith, Trial and Retribution (Series 1-7) and Not Only But Also; and for film, The Awakening, Anonymous, Agora, From Paris with Love, National Treasure 2, Oliver Twist, The Jacket, Le Vicaire, Morality Play, The Innocent andBatman.

John Hopkins' theatre credits include Holy Warriors (Shakespeare's Globe), Private Lives (Edinburgh Lyceum), A Mad World My Masters, Titus Andronicus, Candide, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, Venus and Adonis, King John, Julius Caesar, Love In A Wood (all RSC), Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (Sheffield Crucible), The Deep Blue Sea (Chichester Festival Theatre) and The 39 Steps (Criterion Theatre). For television, his work includes Stan Lee's Lucky Man, Catastrophe, Dancing On The Edge, Hacks, Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, Merlin, Identity, Wire In The Blood, Robin Hood, The Path to 9/11, Nicholas Nickleby, Love In A Cold Climate, and two series as Detective Sergeant Scott in Midsomer Murders; and for film, The Face Of An Angel, Alice In Wonderland, The Experiment and The Pool.

Ben Jones' theatre work includes The Bone Room (Young Vic), The Three Musketeers (UK tour), Time Of My Life (Royal and Derngate Theatre), The Pretender Agenda (Charing Cross Theatre), First Person Shooter(Birmingham Rep), Communicating Doors (UK tour) and And Then The Dark (New Wolsey Theatre). For television, his work includes The Borgias, Spooks, My Family, Echo Beach, Moving Wallpaper and Doctors(as series regular Dr Greg Robinson).

Tim Carroll began his career with the English Shakespeare Company before becoming Associate Director at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter. Since 1995 he has directed plays for theatres all over Britain, includingEngaged (Orange Tree, Richmond), Gasping (Gateway Theatre, Chester) and Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (Salisbury Playhouse). As Associate Director of Shakespeare's Globe in London, his work includes Peter Oswald's Augustine's Oak, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Macbeth, Richard II (winner of the Jujamcyn Award), Dido, Queen of Carthage, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and The Storm. In 2002 he directed The Golden Ass and Twelfth Night - the latter won Evening Standard, Time Out, Critics' Circle and Olivier Awards, and in 2003 was revived for a record-breaking run at the Globe, followed by a tour of the United States. In 2012, he returned to Shakespeare's Globe to direct Richard III and Twelfth Night. The two shows then transferred to the West End for a record-breaking run at the Apollo, and went on in 2013/14 to play at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway, where they also broke box-office records, as well as winning Outer Critics' Circle, Drama Desk and Tony Awards. His other work spans the world, The Tempest (Teatro Sao Luiz), Peer Gynt (Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lincoln Center, Royal Festival Hall, Middle Temple Hall, and also broadcast on BBC TV and radio), The Merchant of Venice (RSC),The Mystae (Hampstead Theatre), King John (Stratford Festival, Ontario), as well as work for his own company The Factory.

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