13 February 2025
Newsdesk
Royal Court Theatre and Sonia Friedman Productions today announce casting for Robert Icke’s Manhunt. Written and directed by Icke, the world premiere marks his Royal Court debut and tells the story of Raoul Moat: the man at the heart of one of the most infamous manhunts of the century.
The cast includes: Samuel Edward-Cook, Trevor Fox, Leo James, Patricia Jones, Danny Kirrane, Angela Lonsdale, Sally Messham and Nicolas Tennant.
Nathan Jago and Odhran Riddell will alternate the role of Boy and Zoe Bryan and Madeleine McKenna will alternate the role of Girl.
The designer is Hildegard Bechtler, the lighting designer is Azusa Ono and the sound designer is Tom Gibbons. The video designer is Ash J Woodward, the casting director is Julia Horan CDG and the fight director is Kev McCurdy. The artistic advisor is Andrew Hankinson, the Associate Director is Aneesha Srinivasan and assistant director is Anna Ryder.
The production runs in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs from Friday 28 March - Saturday 3 May 2025 with press night on Tuesday 8 April 2025, 7pm.
‘Raoul Moat was a callous murderer. Full Stop. End of story’ - David Cameron
On July 1st, 2010, Raoul Moat was released from Durham Prison.
The events of the next few days would leave a man murdered, a police officer blinded, a woman fighting for her life - and spark the biggest manhunt in UK history.
Award-winning writer and director Robert Icke (Oedipus, Player Kings, West End) provides a chilling portrait of a man on the run.
A Royal Court commission, presented in co-production with Sonia Friedman Productions.
Robert Icke
As writer/ director, theatre includes: Oedipus (West End); Player Kings (West End/National Tour); The Doctor (&Park Avenue Armory/West End/Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide); Judas, Children of Nora, Oedipus (Internationaal Theater Amsterdam); Animal Farm (National Tour); The Wild Duck, Mary Stuart (&West End/National Tour), Uncle Vanya, Oresteia (&West End/Schauspiel Stuttgart/Park Avenue Armory), 1984 (&Broadway/West End/National and International Tour) (Almeida).
As director, theatre includes: Hamlet (&West End/Park Avenue Armory/broadcast), The Fever, Mr Burns (Almeida).
Awards include: two Evening Standard Best Director Award (The Doctor; The Wild Duck; Oresteia); the Critics' Circle Award (Oresteia), the Kurt Hübner Award; Olivier Award for Best Director (Oresteia).
Cast:
Zoe Bryan
Film includes: That Christmas.
Samuel Edward-Cook (he/him)
Theatre includes: Player Kings (West End); Queen Margaret, Persuasion (Manchester Royal Exchange); Antigone (Barbican/BAM/International Tour); Pitcairn (Chichester), Titus Andronicus (Globe); Our Big Land (Romany Theatre Company/New Wolsey); King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath); Glory Dazed (Soho/Edinburgh Fringe/Adelaide Fringe); Boys (Headlong).
Television includes: The Listeners, Better, The Gallow’s Pole, Full Moon, Silent Witness, Pure, Casualty, Emmerdale, Innocent, Brief Encounters, Beowulf, Doctors, Peaky Blinders, Land Girls.
Film includes: Wilhelm Tell, Between the Lights.
Trevor Fox (he/him)
Theatre includes: As You Like It (RSC); My Brilliant Friend, Macbeth, Common (National); Peggy For You (Hampstead); The Jungle (Young Vic/Playhouse/US Tour); Amedee (Birmingham Rep); The Tempest, Cymbeline (Sam Wanamaker, Globe); The Oresteia, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Gabriel, The Tempest, Coriolanus, Under the Black Flag (Globe); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (& Tour), Pitman Painters (& National/Tour/Broadway), Billy Elliot (West End); King Lear, Children’s Children (Almeida); Cherry Orchard (Oxford Stage Company); Toast, Bones (Live Newcastle).
Television includes:Rain Dogs, The Thief, his Wife and the Canoe, The Moonstone, Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, Joe Maddison’s War, Doctors, The Walk, Daddy’s Girl, Emmerdale, Our Friends in the North.
Film includes: The Old Oak, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason, Gabriel and Me, Billy Elliot.
Nathan Jago
Television includes: Babies.
Leo James (he/him)
Theatre includes: Peter and the Wildflowers (BALLETlorent/Live); Our World, Media Circus (Live, Newcastle).
Television includes: The Dumping Ground (S6-10), Laggin, Mashville High, Saturday Mashup.
Patricia Jones (she/her)
Theatre includes: Mycelial (Northern Stage/Open Clasp); Maryland, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Riding Lights); Road (Northern Stage); West End Girls, Cooking with Elvis (& Whitehall) (Live, Newcastle); Women Warriors, The ‘C’ Card (Workie Ticket); Occupation (ARC/Little Cog); Crosswords (Mancmade Festival); To Be Frank (Silly Woman); And Then There Were None (United National); Uncle Vanya (Greyscale); Henry Iv (& Bronzehead), In Fog and Falling Snow (York Theatre Royal); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Well Fangled); Small Talk (Fine Comb); Strippers (Leicester Haymarket); Crime and Punishment, Lysitrata (The Steam Industry).
Television includes: The Red King, Breathtaking, The Dumping Ground, Coronation Street, Adult Material, Doctors, Emmerdale, Eastenders, Byker Grove, Grange Hill, Badger, Pig Heart Boy, Stranger than Fiction, Harry.
Film includes: Apartment 7A, I, Daniel Blake, The Habit of Beauty.
Radio includes: The Angel of the North, A Tribute to Lewis Carroll
Danny Kirrane (he/him)
For the Royal Court: Jerusalem.
Other theatre includes: People, Places and Things, The History Boys (& International Tour), Jerusalem (& Broadway) (West End); The Hunt (Almeida & St Ann’s Warehouse); Henry V (Donmar Warehouse); Gentlemen (Arcola); Vassa (Almeida); We’re Staying Right Here (Park Theatre); As You Like It (Regent’s Park Open Air); A Little Hotel on the Side (Theatre Royal Bath); Three Sisters (Young Vic); Boys, Romeo & Juliet (Headlong); Tarantula in Petrol Blue (Aldeburgh Music); Antigone at Hell’s Mouth (Knee High).
Television includes: Maigret, Boat Story, Baby Reindeer, The Serpent Queen, Sandman, Safe Space, Don’t Forget the Driver, Britannia, Poldark, Game of Thrones, Wasted, Doctor Thorne, New Blood, Critical, Trollied, Utopia, I Shouldn’t Be Alive: Ocean Disaster, Hustle, The Inbetweeners, Young, Unemployed and Lazy, Trinity, The Site, Skins.
Film includes: Ravers, Peterloo, Game Over, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hatching, Walking on Sunshine, Automata.
Angela Lonsdale
For the Royal Court: Bluebird.
Other theatre includes: Gypsy the Concert (Hope Mill, Opera House Manchester); Pack (Finborough); And a Nightingale Sang, Sex, Lies and Tricky Bits, She Stoops to Conquer, The Long Line, The Sleeping Beauty (Northern Stage, Newcastle); Black on White Shorts (Paines Plough); Gertrude’s Secret (Arden Entertainment/Grand Theatre, Leeds); Peter Creme’s Eyes (Live, Newcastle); The Mill on the Floss (Contact, Manchester; Women in Love (Durham Theatre Company).
Television includes: All Creatures Great and Small, Shakespeare & Hathaway, The Syndicate, Our Girl, Holby City, Moving On, Vera, Scott and Bailey, This is England 90, Casualty, WPC 56, Wolfblood, Joe Maddison’s War, The Best Possible Taste, Doctors, The Royal, The Afternoon Play, Coronation Street, The Last Musketeer, City Central, Peak Practice, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, Seesaw, The Vanishing Man, A Touch of Frost, The Moth, Kavanagh QC, All Quiet on the Preston Front, Finney, Firm Friends, Fightin for Gemma, Byker Grove.
Radio includes: Stone, Our Hylda, Resistance, The Progress of the Soul, The Progress of the Soul of Lizzie Calvin, Silver Street.
Madeleine McKenna
Film includes: In Too Deep [short].
Sally Messham (she/her)
Theatre includes: Black Mountain, Out of Love, How to be a Kid (Paines Plough/Orange Tree); Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Hammersmith).
Television includes: Blood of my Blood, A Small Light, The Hunt for Raoul Moat, Sherwood, Doc Martin, The Miniaturist, Midwinter of the Spirit.
Film includes: Blitz, Aftersun, Our Ladies, Artemis Fowl, Allied, Denial.
Odhran Riddell
Film includes: Between the Lights.
Nicolas Tennant
For the Royal Court, theatre includes: Herons.
Other theatre includes: The Birthday Party (Theatre Royal Bath); The Homecoming (Young Vic); The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (West End); The Power of Yes, Caucasian Chalk Circle (& Tour), The U.N. Inspector, The Associate, The Blue Ball (National); Valued Friends (Rose, Kingston); The Duchess of Malfi, All's Well That Ends Well, As You like It, Hamlet, Taming Of The Shrew, King Lear (RSC); The Seagull, Three Kingdoms (Lyric Hammersmith); The Alchemist, Dr Faustus (Liverpool Playhouse); Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (& West End), Tiger Country, Love Me Tonight (Hampstead); The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (& Liverpool Everyman), A Christmas Carol, The Recruiting Officer (Chichester Festival); Piranha Nights, Roaring Trade (Soho); Romeo & Juliet (Middle Temple); People At Sea (Salisbury Playhouse); Dead Funny (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Members Only (Trafalgar Studio); Under The Black Flag (Globe); Teeth 'n' Smiles, Cloud 9 (Sheffield Theatre); Comedians (Oxford Stage); Les Justes (Gate); Sugar, Sugar, Love & Understanding, Bad Company (Bush).
Television includes: Casualty, Peaky Blinders , The Bill, Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, The Residents), Backup, Nice Town.
Film includes: Denial, Breaking The Bank, What You Will, Sex Lives Of The Potato Men, Tube Tales 'Monday Morning’, Oscar & Lucinda, Backbeat, A Dangerous Man, The Fool, The Gift
