Hamnet
Performed at the garrick Theatre between 30 Sep, 2023 and 17 Feb, 2024
‘She’s like no one I’ve ever met… She’s like fire and water all at once.’
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s hotly-anticipated new production of HAMNET is now playing at London’s Garrick Theatre for a limited season until 17 February 2024.
Warwickshire, 1582. Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets the Latin tutor, William Shakespeare. Drawn together by powerful but hidden impulses, they create a life together and make a family. When the plague steals 11-year-old Hamnet from his loving parents, they must each confront their loss alone. And yet, out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born.
Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling book and adapted by award-winning playwright Lolita Chakrabarti (Life of Pi, Red Velvet, Hymn), Hamnet pulls back a curtain on the story of the greatest writer in the English language and the woman who was the constant presence and purpose of his life.
Directed by Erica Whyman, with Set Design by Tom Piper, Lighting by Prema Mehta, Sound by Simon Baker, Music by Oğuz Kaplangi, Movement by Ayse Tashkiran, Fights by Kate Waters and Casting by Amy Ball CDG, Hamnet is a love letter to passion, birth, grief and the magic of nature.
'Elegant and beguiling'
Evening Standard
'Madeleine Mantock shines with an otherworldly brightness'
Independent
'Chakrabarti’s tender stage adaptation of O'Farrell's heartbreaking novel'
Financial Times
'pure theatre gold'
MAIL ON SUNDAY
'the evening soars, and sears'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Evocative and beautifully acted'
THE TIMES
‘Unbearably moving’
DAILY MAIL
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CAST
Gabriel Akuwudike
BARTHOLOMEW
Previous theatre credits include King Lear (The Globe), Blackmail (Mercury Theatre), Either (Hampstead Theatre), Time is Love (Finborough Theatre), Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree Theatre), A Gym Thing (Small Things Theatre), No One is an Island (Tangle). Television credits include Screw series 2 (STV Productions/Channel 4), The Doll Factory (Buccaneer Media/Paramount+), Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon), Hana series 3 (NBC Universal / Amazon), Ridley Road (Red Productions), War of the Worlds series 2 (Urban Myth Films), Cursed (Netflix), Game of Thrones (HBO), Berlin Station season 3 (Epix), Brexit: The Uncivil War (House Productions / Channel 4), The Bisexual (Hulu / Channel 4), The Informer (Neal Street Productions). Film credits include: The Beautiful Game (Netflix) and 1917 (Neal Street / Amblin).
SARAH BELCHER
JOAN
RSC: Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors.
THIS SEASON: Hamnet.
THEATRE INCLUDES: The March on Russia (Orange Tree); Medea (Almeida); Twelfth Night (Filter Theatre/RSC); The Accrington Pals (Manchester Royal Exchange); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Headlong); Beachy Head (Analogue); Roam (National Theatre Scotland/Grid Iron); The Devil’s Larder (Grid Iron); The Elephant Man (Sheffield Lyceum); The Magic Carpet (Lyric Hammersmith); Zero Degrees and Drifting (Unlimited); 13 Objects, He Stumbled, Ursula, The Ecstatic Bible (The Wrestling School/Adelaide Festival); A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (Almeida); Edmond, The Collection (Northern Stage); The Nativity (Young Vic); Leonce and Lena, Candide, Ballad of Wolves (The Gate); A River Sutra (National Theatre Studio); The Metamorphoses (Clod Ensemble); Sunspots (Red Room). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Maternal (ITV); This England (Sky); Somewhere Boy (Clerkenwell/Channel 4); Casualty (BBC); Outlander (Left Bank/Starz/ Amazon); Sanditon (ITV/PBS); Call the Midwife (BBC); Brexit: The Uncivil War (House/Channel 4); Holby City, EastEnders, The Musketeers, Tales from the Old Bailey, Lead Balloon (BBC); Talk to Me (ITV). FILM INCLUDES: IC9, The Long Goodbye, London Unplugged, Beginner’s Luck. RADIO INCLUDES: Hair of the Dog, Big Heart, The Cold Cold Snow, Crusty Pie and Knowledge and a Girl.
WILL BROWN
BURBAGE/FATHER JOHN
RSC: The Duchess of Malfi, The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich.
THIS SEASON: Hamnet.
UNDERSTUDY: William/Ned.
TRAINED: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
THEATRE INCLUDES: The False Servant (Orange Tree); Inheritance Blues (Hightide Festival/Soho Theatre/Sheffield Crucible/West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Journey (Pleasance Theatre). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Endeavour, The Outlaws, Disability Benefits, Person on a Chair, The B@IT, The Nevers, Midsomer Murders, Unforgotten, Call the Midwife, Doctor Who, Spotless. FILM INCLUDES: Period Drama, Death of Zygielbojm, Extinction.
HAYDN BURKE
OFF-STAGE UNDERSTUDY
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
UNDERSTUDY: Hamnet/Bartholomew/ Thomas Day/Condell.
TRAINED: Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
THEATRE: The Gunpowder Plot (immersive).
AJANI CABEY
HAMNET/THOMAS DAY
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
TRAINED: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
THEATRE WHILST TRAINING: Absolute Scenes, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Romeo and Juliet, Loam, Jumpers for Goalposts (Bristol Old Vic Theatre School). TELEVISION: Alex Rider 3. FILM INCLUDES: The Fence. Short: Pickney.
FAYE CAMPBELL
OFF-STAGE UNDERSTUDY
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
UNDERSTUDY: Susannah/Judith/Tilly.
THEATRE INCLUDES: All New Adventures of Peter Pan, Cinderella (York Theatre Royal/Evolution Productions); Peter Pan Reimagined (Birmingham Rep); The Hole (Birmingham Old Rep); Snow White (Sixteenfeet Productions).
TELEVISION INCLUDES: Champion (BBC/ Netflix); Doctors (BBC).
FILM INCLUDES: Punch (Paranoid Android Films); The Space Between (Zion Films).
SHORT: If We Lived (Zion Films).
Phoebe Campbell
SUSANNA
Trained at RADA and their theatre credits include playing Cecily in The English Touring Theatre’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Phoebe’s television credits include the role of Rhaena Targaryen in House of The Dragon for HBO. Their pronouns are they/them.
Mhairi Gayer
TILLY/CATERINA/LANDLADY
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
THEATRE INCLUDES: The Prince and the Pauper (Trinity); Me Myself and I (Vaults); Paradise Lost, Colder than Here, Post Mortem (Guildhall); The Cherry Orchard, Antony and Cleopatra, The Trojan Women, City of Angels, A Doll’s House, The Browning Version, The Beaux Stratagem, The Three Sisters, Birdland, The Mystery Plays (Guildhall School of Music and Drama).
TELEVISION INCLUDES: Life After Life, Bloodmoon
FRANKIE HASTINGS
ELIZA/CUSTOMER
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
UNDERSTUDY: Caterina.
TRAINED: RADA.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Our Generation (workshop at Chichester Festival Theatre and the National Theatre). Theatre whilst training includes: The Forsyte Saga, Macbeth, The Laramie Project, Mysterious Bruises, Julius Caesar. TELEVISION: Call the Midwife (BBC). FILM: Belfast.
KARL HAYNES
NED/PHYSICIAN/CONDELL
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
UNDERSTUDY: John/Will Kempe/Burbage/ Father John.
THEATRE INCLUDES: An Enemy of the People, Wonderland, Shebeen, Of Mice and Men, The Ashes (Nottingham Playhouse); Passion (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris); Warhorse (National Theatre/ international tours); Much Ado About Nothing (Colchester Mercury); Seeing the Lights (New Vic); Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Macbeth, 1984 (Hull Truck); Crying In the Chapel (Fink On/Contact Theatre); Wasteland, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (New Perspectives); Look Back in Anger (Harrogate/ Oldham); Bloodtide, Road, Lord of the Flies (Pilot Theatre/York Theatre Royal/Lyric Hammersmith); Macbeth (York Theatre Royal); Aeroplane Bones (Bristol Old Vic); Waking, Sleeping Dogs (Red Ladder); We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Polka/ Lakeside Arts); Glory (Theatr Clwyd). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Sherwood, World on Fire, Gunpowder, Happy Valley, Doctors, The Chase, Holby City, Most Mysterious Murders, Grange Hill, North and South, EastEnders, Casualty (BBC); Downton Abbey, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Boy Meets Girl, Blue Murder, The Royal, Heartbeat, Cold Feet (ITV); Ghost Squad, North Square (Channel 4); Urban Gothic (Channel 5). FILM INCLUDES: When the Lights Went Out, The Devil Outside, The Colour Room, Apartment 7A. RADIO: Out of the Blue (BBC Radio 4).
ALEX JARRETT
JUDITH
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
TRAINED: The Brit School.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Our Generation (National Theatre); Maryland (Theatre Royal Stratford East); We Anchor in Hope (The Bunker); Aisha (Old Red Lion). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Adult Material (Channel 4); The Witchfinder (BBC2); Sitting (BBC4); Les Misérables, Doctors (BBC1). FILM INCLUDES: Shorts: Snow Falls in Summer, Sasha and Jo Are Getting Married, Different Day. RADIO INCLUDES: Nicked, Moll Flanders (BBC Radio 4). OTHER WORK: BAFTA nominated As Dusk Falls (Interior Night/Xbox).
MADELEINE MANTOCK
AGNES
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
TRAINING: Arts Educational Schools.
THEATRE: Blithe Spirit (Harold Pinter Theatre). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Charmed (CBS); Age Before Beauty (BBC); The Long Song (BBC/NBC); Into the Badlands (AMC); Well Funny People (BBC3); The Tomorrow People (Warner Brothers). FILM INCLUDES: Breaking Brooklyn (Montage Films); The Truth Commissioner (BBC Films); Edge of Tomorrow (Warner Brothers).
HANNAH MCPAKE
JUDE/ PHYSICIAN’S WIFE
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
UNDERSTUDY: Mary/Joan.
TRAINED: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Romeo and Juliet, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Shakespeare’s Globe); I am Kevin (Wildworks); Tales of the Brothers Grimm, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, Maudie’s Rooms, Cinders, Plum [And Me, Will] (Sherman Theatre); The Shape of the Pain (China Plate); I am Thomas (Told by an Idiot/National Theatre Scotland/ Lyceum Theatre); The Tempest (Improbable/Northern Stage); The Flop (Hijinx/Spymonkey); The Story, Seanmhair (The Other Room); The Gamblers (Greyscale/Dundee Rep/Northern Stage); Rapunzel (Glasgow Citizens); Silly Kings, Wonderman, Green Man/Red Woman (National Theatre Wales); Double Vision (Wales Millennium Centre/Gagglebabble); The Bloody Ballad, The Forsythe Sisters (Gagglebabble). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Casualty (BBC); Trollied (Roughcut TV for SKY1); Skins (Company Productions Ltd for e4). FILM INCLUDES: Where I Go [When I Can’t Be Where I Am] (China Plate/BBC Culture in Quarantine). RADIO INCLUDES: Seven Songs, Modesty Blaise (BBC Radio 4). WRITING INCLUDES: I Am Kevin (Wild Works); Tales of the Brothers Grimm (Sherman Theatre); Balloon Girl (National Theatre Wales).
Liza Sadovy
MARY
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Alice.
THIS SEASON: Hamnet.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Oklahoma! (Wyndham’s, nominated Best Supporting Actress in a Musical; 2023, Olivier Awards); Cabaret (Playhouse, won Best Supporting Actress in a Musical 2022, Olivier Awards); Living Newspaper (Edition 2), A Separate Reality (Royal Court); Present Laughter (The Old Vic); I’m Not Running, Absolute Hell, Tales From the Vienna Woods, The Heiress (National Theatre); Fiddler on the Roof (Chichester Festival Theatre); Pygmalion (Headlong); Wicked (Victoria Apollo); Oliver! (Sheffield Crucible); La Bête (Comedy/Music Box New York); Oklahoma!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Good Soul of Szechuan, Six Characters Looking for an Author (The Young Vic); Sunday in the Park With George (Wyndham’s/Menier Chocolate Factory); Mrs Klein (Royal & Derngate); Secret Rapture (Bristol Old Vic, won Best Supporting Actress TMA Awards 1992); Richard II (Berkoff Productions); The Dresser (Duke of York’s); Into the Woods, Peg (Phoenix); The Slow Drag (Whitehall); Sugar Hill Blues (Hampstead); Company (Donmar Warehouse/West End); Jesus Christ Superstar (the first national tour). Liza also spent two seasons working with Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough.
TELEVISION INCLUDES: A Small Light, Outlander, Ridley Road, Vera, Babylon, The Honourable Woman, Emma, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Casualty, Extras, Prime Suspect (season 3), Tonight at 8.30, Castles, I Remember Nelson.
FILM INCLUDES: A Real Pain, Kavita and Teresa, Disobedience, The Knot, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Topsy-Turvy, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire. Other: Liza has recorded over 200 plays and poetry readings for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service.
TOM VAREY
WILLIAM
RSC DEBUT SEASON: Hamnet.
TRAINED: RADA.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Death Watch (The Print Room); One Arm (Southwark Playhouse); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Liverpool Everyman); A Taste of Honey (Trafalgar Studios). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Fifteen-Love, Ridley Road, Death in Paradise, No Offence, Ackley Bridge, Game of Thrones, Dark Angel. FILM INCLUDES: Boys in the Boat, Pond Life.
PETER WIGHT
JOHN/WILL KEMPE
RSC: The Spanish Tragedy, Much Ado About Nothing, Barbarians, A Clockwork Orange, Hamlet.
THIS SEASON: Hamnet.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Hamlet, Oresteia (New York Armory); Uncle Vanya, The Birthday Party (Harold Pinter Theatre); Rosmersholm (Duke of York‘s); Hamlet (Almeida/Harold Pinter Theatre); The Red Lion, Ivanov, Sleep with Me, Murmuring Judges, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Black Snow, Waiting for Godot (National Theatre); The Seagull (Royal Court/ Broadway); Trelawny of the Wells (Donmar Warehouse); Otherwise Engaged, Chekhov’s Women, Mouth to Mouth (West End); In the Republic of Happiness, In Basildon, Face to the Wall, Not a Game for Boys (Royal Court); The Caretaker (Globe Theatre Warsaw); Edward II (Manchester Royal Exchange); Dearly Beloved, Grace (Hampstead Theatre); A State of Affairs, Othello, Commedia, Progress (Lyric Hammersmith); Julius Caesar (Riverside Studios); A Passion in Six Days, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Nest (Sheffield Crucible); King Lear, Three Sisters (Birmingham Rep); Hard to Get (Traverse Edinburgh); The Seagull (Shared Experience). TELEVISION INCLUDES: A Confession, This Time with Alan Partridge, Vanity Fair, Brief Encounters, I Want My Wife Back, Our Zoo, The Mimic, The Paradise, Hit and Miss, Public Enemies, Titanic, Money, Care, Monday Monday, Our Mutual Friend, Boy Meets Girl, 10 Days to War, Party Animals, EastEnders, Persuasion, Fantabulosa!, Early Doors, Room at the Top, The Security Men, Out of the Blue, Uncle Adolf, The Reckoning. FILM INCLUDES: Cyrano, The Sense of an Ending, Another Mother’s Son, The Program, King of Soho, The Delivery, Brakes, Only You, Kon-Tiki, Hard Boiled Sweets, Clone, Atonement, Hot Fuzz, Lassie, Babel, Pride and Prejudice, The Statement, Lucky Break, Shiner. With Mike Leigh: Another Year, Mr Turner, Vera Drake, Naked, Secrets and Lies, Meantime.
CREATIVES
ERICA WHYMAN
DIRECTOR
RSC: Erica joined the RSC as Deputy Artistic Director in January 2013, was appointed Acting Artistic director in 2021 and led the Company as it recovered from the pandemic. Her programme included My Neighbour Totoro, the Power Shifts season of Shakespeare, The Empress, Falkland Sound, Cowbois, Box of Delights, Fair Maid of the West and Hamnet. She stepped down in June 2023. For The Other Place, in 2014 Erica directed The Ant and the Cicada, Revolt. She said. Revolt again., soon followed by The Christmas Truce in the RST. In 2015 she directed Hecuba and in 2016 The Seven Acts of Mercy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation, followed by the revival of Revolt. She said. Revolt again for the Traverse and Shoreditch Town Hall. In 2017, Erica directed The Earthworks for the Mischief Festival, and Miss Littlewood and Romeo and Juliet in 2018 followed by A Museum in Baghdad in 2019. 2021 Erica directed The Winter’s Tale for the RST/BBC and Faith, a major co-production between the RSC and the Coventry City of Culture Trust.
THIS SEASON: Hamnet.
TRAINED: Philippe Gaulier and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School who awarded her an Honorary Doctorate in 2015.
THEATRE INCLUDES: Erica was Chief Executive of Northern Stage in Newcastle upon Tyne from 2005 to 2012. Under her stewardship Northern Stage became known for ambitious international partnerships, the development of experimental new work especially by young theatre makers and for bold interpretations of modern classics. In 2012 she won the TMA award for Theatre Manager of the Year. Erica was Artistic Director of Southwark Playhouse (1998-2000) and then Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill (2000-2004) and is a theatre director with many years’ experience all over the UK. For Northern Stage: Son of Man, Ruby Moon, Our Friends in the North, A Christmas Carol, A Doll’s House, Look Back in Anger, Hansel and Gretel, Oh! What a Lovely War (nominated for two TMA awards), The Wind in the Willows, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (nominated for Best Director at the 2011 TMA Awards), The Borrowers and the UK premiere of Oh, the Humanity (Edinburgh/ Soho Theatre). Other work includes: The Birthday Party (Sheffield Crucible); The Shadow of a Boy (National Theatre); The Flu Season, Marieluise, Witness, Les Justes (Gate); The Winter’s Tale, The Glass Slipper (Southwark Playhouse). In November 2016, Erica was the recipient of the Peter Brook Special Achievement Award.