Full Cast Set for World Premiere of THE ODYSSEY: MISSING PRESUMED DEAD

English Touring Theatre and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse today announce the full cast for the world première of their co-production of The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead. The production reunites Simon Armitage and Nick Bagnall after their recent collaborations on The Last Days of Troy and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Nick Bagnall directs Lee Armstrong, Simon Dutton, Roger Evans, Polly Frame, David Hartley, Ranjit Krishnamma, Chris Reilly, Sule Rimi, Danusia Samal, Colin Tierney and Susie Trayling.

The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead opens at Liverpool Everyman on 30 September, with previews from 25 September, and runs until 17 October. The production then tours to venues including Richmond Theatre (20-24 October), Brighton Theatre Royal (27-31 October), Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe (3 -14 November), Cambridge Arts Theatre (17-21 November) and Exeter Northcott Theatre (24-28 November).

Simon Armitage said "The new gods sit in Whitehall and Downing Street, no less image-obsessed and power-hungry than their ancient counterparts, and a latter-day borderless Europe forms the backdrop to Odysseus' travels, to a journey that begins at the confluence point of East and West, a place of conflict from the Siege of Troy to the present day."

Nick Bagnall commented, "The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead is a story Simon and I have wanted to tell since we left the Greeks setting sail for Ithaca in our production of The Last Days of Troy. We are going to sail Odysseus home. After ten years in a stalemate stuck on a disease ridden beach with the Trojans behind their impenetrable wall we now face the open seas and a whole army of mythical creatures to knock us off course. It has been the most thrilling year for me, from my appointment as Associate Director to A Midsummer Night's Dream and then The Odyssey with our greatest living poet."

A high ranking government minister with a colourful past is sent on a delicate diplomatic mission to Istanbul. But when his trip ends up in a horrific bar room brawl, social media explodes and the enigmatic darling of a political party becomes Europe's most wanted man overnight. Chased by the authorities, damned by religious leaders, pursued by those looking for vengeance and head-hunted by fanatics, his Odyssey begins.

Plunged into the ancient past Odysseus must now contend with all the unworldly beings and unnatural phenomena that stand in his way. The Cyclops, the Sirens, witches, whirlpools and flesh-eating armies must all be overcome in the struggle for survival and the long voyage back to the present day. Back at home, with her husband missing presumed dead, his wife Penelope and their young son are besieged by the press, ravenous for the full story.

Director of English Touring Theatre, Rachel Tackley said today, "I thought The Last Days of Troy was extraordinary and compelling, bringing ancient characters to life for modern audiences, so I leapt at the opportunity to commission Simon Armitage to finish the story. I'm delighted to be working with him and Nick Bagnall on a new version of The Odyssey for audiences all over the country. It's a joy to be working with our old friends in Liverpool and to be opening it at the Everyman. We can't wait to get started."

Gemma Bodinetz, Artistic Director of Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse added "We are thrilled to be collaborating with English Touring Theatre on this extraordinary project. Simon Armitage is renowned for his lucid reimagining of Homer's epic poetry and as was proved with The Last Days of Troy, his theatrical adaptation of The Iliad, he is in the most inspiring of directorial hands with our associate director Nick Bagnall. The Everyman is the perfect performance space for epic ensemble theatre and we are proud to launch The Odyssey on its maiden voyage around the country with such distinguished co-producers as English Touring Theatre."

Lee Armstrong plays Magnus + ensemble. His theatre credits include War Horse (National Theatre/Tour); Talk Show (Royal Court); Brilliant Adventures (Royal Exchange); Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun (Finborough Theatre); and for TV, Midsomer Murders, Inspector George Gently and Doctors.

Simon Dutton plays Prime Minister / Tiresias / Cyclops + ensemble. His theatre credits include: Private Lives (Kensington Palace); Plague Over England (Finborough Theatre); Semi Monde (Lyric Theatre); Helping Harry (Jermyn Theatre); Heartbreak House (Almedia); Time And The Conways (Old Vic); The Importance Of Being Earnest (Whitehall Theatre); Not About Heroes and The Duchess Of Malfi (National Theatre); Another Country (Queens Theatre). For TV his credits include A Royal Christmas, Dracula, Garrows Law, Come Rain or Come Shine, Dr Who, Bones, Not Going Out, The Real Deal, New Tricks, The Rise and Fall of Rome, As If, Nancherrow, The Place Of The Dead, The Saint, The Man In The Brown Suit, By The Sword Divided and Churchill-The Wilderness Years; and for film, Jupiter Ascending, Suite Francaise, 1911, Death Train, Lasko, The Hunt Feast, Dangerous Beauty, King David, Memed My Hawk, A Man From A Far Country and Walking With The Enemy.

Roger Evans plays McGill / Eurylochus + ensemble. His theatre credits include Britannia Rules The Waves (Royal Exchange); Henry VI (Shakespeare's Globe); Salt Root and Roe (Donmar / Trafalgar Studios); Woyzeck (St Anne's NY / Gate Theatre); Rose Bernd and Professor Bernhardi (Oxford Stage Company / Arcola); How Love Is Spelt (Bush); The King Stag (Young Vic) and Gas Station Angel (Royal Court, International Tour). For TV credits include, Da Vinci's Demons (series regular), Gittins, The Warm Up Guy, Svengali, Fallout, Venezuela Blues, Goldplated, Ghostboat, Aberfan, Sea Of Souls, Murphy's Law, Absolute Power, Nuts & Bolts, The Bench I and II, Bradford I My Dreams, Sleeping With The TV On, A Mind To Kill, Rhinoceros, Syth, Crime Traveller and Wonderful You; and for film, Tarzan, Svengali, Kubricks, Hunky Dory, Ghosted, Abroad, Cow, A Bit Of Tom Jones, Daddy's Girl, Atonement, All Or Nothing, Human Traffic, Suckerfish and The Bourne Identity.

Polly Frame plays Anthea / Athena + ensemble. Her theatre credits include Arcadia (Tobacco Factory); Twelfth Night (Filter Theatre); Pastoral (Soho Theatre); After Miss Julie (Young Vic), The Crossing 66 Books (Bush Theatre), Earthquakes in London (National Theatre); The Count of Monte Cristo (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Macbeth (Chichester, West End and Broadway), A Response to Twelfth Night (Filter); The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Poor Mrs Pepys (New Vic); ACDC (Royal Court); Cleansed (Arcola), Seven and a Half Minutes of Happiness, Di-sect and Eve (Bristol). For TV her credits include, Man Down, The Tunnel, The Curse of the Hope Diamond, Silent Witness, Bunny Town, Sea of Souls, Accused, Life Begins, New Tricks, Meet the Magoons, The Giblets and Servants; and for film, Macbeth, Half Light and Duplicity.

David Hartley plays Kite + ensemble. His theatre credits include Henry VI (Shakespeare's Globe); As You Like It and Merlin (Chester Performs); Billy Liar (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Cling To Me Like Ivy (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Tempest (York Theatre Royal/Sprite Productions); I Caught Crabs In Walberswick (High Tide Festival); Lovely and Misfit (Trafalgar Studios); If I Were You (Stephen Joseph Theatre); Holes (Nuffield); Measure For Measure (Globe and USA Tour) and Edward II (Sheffield Theatres); and for TV, Doctor Who, Talk To Me, Kingdom and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard.

Ranjit Krishnamma plays Reynolds / Turkish Barkeeper + ensemble. For theatre his credits include Dara and Behind The Beautiful Forevers and Playing With Fire (National); The Daughter (The Wedding Collective); Othello (Nottingham Playhouse); Midnight's Children (RSC); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Attic Theatre Company); The Last Yellow (Chelsea Centre); Two Gentlemen Of Verona (Sherman Arena Theatre) and World Storytime (Theatre Royal Stratford East). For TV, The Life And Adventures of Nick Nickleby, Silent Witness, Law And Order: London, Harley Street, New Street Law, Little Britain, Murphy's Law, Waking the Dead, Grease Monkeys, Into the Void, The Bench, Kidnapped, The Turnaround, A Natural Selection, Dando's Brilliantine, Little Napoleon, Tender Loving Care, Oh Mary This London and Sister Wife; and for film, A Hundred Streets, Blitz, Cave In, High Heels And Low Lifes, New Year's Day and Shooters.

Chris Reilly plays Fenton / Perimedes + ensemble. His theatre credits include Let The Right One In (National Theatre of Scotland); Truth and Reconciliation (Royal Court); ".45" (Hampstead Theatre) and In My Mouth (Piccolo Theatre Milan). For TV his credits include Call the Midwife, Moving On, Atlantis II, Suspects, Our World War, Game of Thrones, Shetland: Raven Black, Silent Witness, Home Front, Hidden/The Undisclosed, Scotland's Killers, Five Daughters and Crash; and for film, Everest, Allies, The Devil Went Down To Islington, Heaven, The Cost of Living and Wonderland.

Sule Rimi plays Soli / Polites + ensemble. His theatre credits include The Rolling Stone (Royal Exchange/ West Yorkshire Playhouse); Boardergame (National Theatre Wales); Downtown Paradise (Welsh Fargo Theatre Company); Othello (Fluellen Theatre Company) and New Arrivals (Sherman Theatre Company). For TV his credits include Unforgotten, DNN, Stella, Crash, Caerdydd, Scrum IV: Operation, Bobble, Fondue, Sex and Dinosaurs, The Story of Tracey Beaker, First Degree and Outside the Rules; and for film, Black or White, Mariah & The Midas Box, Silent Night, Bloody Night; The Homecoming, The Machine, Elfie Hopkins and The Gammons, Night of The Living Dead: Resurrection, Panic Button, Little Munchkin, Robinson Crusoe, Webbed, Going Dutch, The Gatekeeper, Colonial Gods, Be Kind Rewind, Rock 'n' Roll Killers, The "I" Inside, Playhouse, Heart and Out of Nowhere.

Danusia Samal plays Circe / Anticlea / Briseis + ensemble. Her theatre credits include How To Hold Your Breath (Royal Court); The House That Will Not Stand (Tricycle); Circles (Birmingham Rep / Tricycle); Billy The Girl (Clean Break / Soho Theatre); The Birthday Party (Manchester Royal Exchange); 1001 Nights (Unicorn / Transport); Liar Liar (Unicorn); The Animals And The Children Took To The Streets (National); After The Rainfall (Curious Directive); Scenes From The Big Picture, Motortown, Richard III and The Oresteia (Central School of Speech and Drama); Street Scene and The Suit (Young Vic). For TV her credits include Tyrant and Boom; and for film, In Close Quarters and Do You Want To Try Again?

Colin Tierney plays Odysseus / Smith. His theatre credits include The Misanthrope and Tartuffe for English Touring Theatre/Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse. Other theatre credits include The Father (Theatre Royal Bath and Tricycle Theatre); Britannia Waves The Rules, The Seagull and Cold Meat Party (Royal Exchange); The Last Days Of Troy (Royal Exchange / Globe); Betrayal and Hamlet (Sheffield Crucible) Hedda Gabler (Theatre Royal Bath and Tour); One Minute (Courtyard Theatre); How Love Is Spelt (Bush); Exiles (Young Vic); Duchess Of Malfi (RSC); Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic); Ivanov (Almeida); No Remission and Sienna Red (Peter Hall Company). For TV his credits include Vera, DCI Banks, Garrow's Law, Casualty 1909, Inpector Lynley, The Walk, Island At War, Serious And Organised, Foyle's War, The Vice, Mersey Beat, Tough Love, Soldier Soldier, Between The Lines, Mad And Sandy (Pilot), Cracker, An Unsuitable Job For A Woman and McCallum; and for film; Nowhere Boy, The Ombudsman, For Zeta, Splintered and Bye Bye Baby.

Susie Trayling plays Penelope + ensemble. Her theatre credits include The Hook (Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse / Royal & Derngate, Northampton); The Crucible and Twelfth Night (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Thomas Tallis (Shakespeare's Globe); Idomeneus and Vanya (Gate); Sons Without Fathers (Belgrade Theatre/ Arcola Theatre); King John, Richard III and A Soldier in Every Son (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Constant Wife, Private Lives and The Waters of the Moon (Salisbury Playhouse); Antony and Cleopatra (Nuffield Theatre); Mary Goes First and The Mob (Orange Tree); Love's Labour's Lost (Rose Theatre); A Doll's House, The Portrait of a Lady, Habeas Corpus and Measure for Measure (Peter Hall Company); Women of Troy, Dream Play, Iphigenia at Aulis and The Forest (National Theatre) and Don't Look Now (Sheffield Lyceum/Lyric Hammersmith). For TV her credits include: Midsomer Murders, Vera, We'll Take Manhattan, Emma, Heartbeat, Casualty and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries; and for film; Fragile, Fog Bound and All The Queen's Men.

Having recently been appointed Oxford Professor of Poetry, Simon Armitage has published nine volumes of poetry, most recently Walking Away (Faber & Faber 2015), Seeing Stars (2010, Faber & Faber, Knopf 2011), Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid (Faber, 2006) and The Not Dead (Pomona, 2008). He has won numerous awards and prizes and been shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His translation of the middle English classic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, commissioned by Faber & Faber in the UK and Norton in the US, was published in 2007. An anthology of bird poetry, edited with Tim Dee, was published by Viking in October 2009 and his latest collection of poetry Seeing Stars was published by Faber in 2010. His dramatisation of The Odyssey, commissioned by the BBC, was broadcast on Radio 4. The book, Homer's Odyssey - A Retelling, was published by Faber & Faber in the UK and by Norton in the US. He has written for over a dozen television films, and received an Ivor Novello Award for his song-lyrics in the Channel 4 film Feltham Sings, which also won a BAFTA. His prose work includes two novels, the best-selling memoir All Points North, (Penguin 1998) which was the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year, and its follow-up, Gig. Armitage's 2012 non-fiction book Walking Home, an account of his troubadour journey along the Pennine Way, was a Sunday Times best-seller and was shortlisted for the 2012 Portico Prize.

Associate Director of Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Nick Bagnall directs. For the company, his work includes A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Electric Hills. His other work includes The Last Days of Troy and Britannia Waves the Rules (Royal Exchange, Manchester/ Globe Theatre), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Shakespeare's Globe), Henry VI, Parts I, II & III (Shakespeare's Globe/UK Tour), A Christmas Fair and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Milton Rooms, Malton), Fragile (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry), Betrayal (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), A Separate Reality (Royal Court Rough Cut), By Jeeves (Landor), Billy Liar (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Guys and Dolls (Arts Theatre Cambridge), Entertaining Mr Sloane (English Touring Theatre /Trafalgar Studios), Burning Cars (Hampstead Theatre), Mongoose (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh), Promises & Lies (Birmingham Rep.), Bolthole and 'Low Dat (The Door, Birmingham Rep.) and The Ruffian on The Stair (Old Red Lion).

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