Rudi Dharmalingam, Sharon Duncan-Brewster & More to Star in HOPE at the Royal Court

Casting is announced today for Hope, BAFTA-winning writer Jack Thorne's first original play to be staged at the Royal Court. Hope follows Thorne's success with Glue and This is England '86 and reunites him with director John Tiffany after their celebrated production Let the Right One In, which transferred to the West End earlier this year.

The cast includes Rudi Dharmalingam, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Jo Eastwood, Christine Entwisle, Tom Georgeson, Stella Gonet, Paul Higgins, Tommy Knight and Nisha Nayar.

Hope is an urgent, responsive play about where we are right now politically. Thorne's funny, heartfelt and scathing fable attacks the squeeze on local government, examines our disillusionment with the current political parties and asks where we go from here.

The production is directed by John Tiffany, designed by Tom Scutt, with lighting by Chahine Yavroyan and sound by Carolyn Downing. Martin Lowe composes and is musical supervisor.

Jack Thorne made his Royal Court debut last year with his adaptation of Let the Right One In. His recent theatre credits include Stuart: A Life Backwards at the Edinburgh Fringe, Mydidae, The Physicists (adapt.) 2 May 1997, When you Cure Me and Bunny, for which he won a Fringe First Award. On television, his work includes Glue (currently running on Channel 4), The Fades (Best Drama Series - BAFTA 2012), This Is England 88 (Best Mini-Series - BAFTA 2012) and This Is England 86, with Shane Meadows. On screen, his credits include a screen adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel A Long Way Down, The Scouting Book for Boys and War Book.

John Tiffany, Associate Director of the Royal Court, directs. His most recent credits at the Royal Court include The Pass by John Donnelly and Let the Right One In (a National Theatre of Scotland production, which transferred to the Apollo in the West End), and he will direct The Twits there next April. His production of The Glass Menagerie at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Broadway was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Director, and Once (New York Theater Workshop, Broadway, Melbourne Australia and the West End) won John a Tony, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award and an Obie Award. His work for the National Theatre of Scotland includes Macbeth (also on Broadway), Enquirer (co-directed with Vicky Featherstone), The Missing, Peter Pan, The House of Bernarda Alba, Transform Caithness: Hunter, Be Near Me, Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, The Bacchae and Black Watch, for which he won an Olivier and Critics' Circle Award

The Big Idea: Hope
The Big Idea is a strand of work at the Royal Court launched during last year's Open Court festival, offering audiences radical thinking and provocative discussion inspired by the work on stage.

In Conversation with Jack Thorne on Apathy and Austerity
Friday 5 December, post-show
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs
Free with a ticket to this performance

The New Order: Three playwrights are commissioned to each write their own political broadcast on behalf of their own political party
Friday 12 December, 6.15pm, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs
£5 or free with a ticket to Hope

Political Playwright @ Your Table
Saturday 13 December, 10am
Playwright @ Your Table returns, following its success at Open Court, allowing audiences a rare opportunity to hear writers read aloud their own plays in a secret location around the building and reviving some of the landmark political plays to emerge from the Royal Court over the last 60 years. The Bar & Kitchen will open early for tea, coffee and bacon sandwiches, where audiences will then select their chance encounter from a tombola draw.
Tickets £10. Limited capacity.

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