Royal Court regular Danny Webb will be joined by David Ajala and Pippa Bennett-Warner in The Witness, the Royal Court Theatre’s forthcoming thriller that will play in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs this summer.
Vivienne Franzmann’s follow-up to her debut Olivier Award-nominated play Mogadishu will play from 1 to 30 June. Directed by Simon Godwin, the dark drama focuses on Alex, a girl captured in an award-winning photograph in Rwanda and later rescued and adopted by the man behind the lens. Back from university and returning to where was raised, the distance between father and daughter stretches taut and in a dark room of a Hampstead home, a long hidden secret is slowly exposed in a flash of revelation.
Webb, who returns to the venue following 2011’s Chicken Soup With Barley, will star as Alex’s adopted father Joseph. A regular on the London stage, Webb’s other credits include Serious Money, Piano Forte and Trade at the Royal Court, Blasted at the Lyric Hammersmith and The Philanthropist at the Donmar Warehouse.
The Witness marks both Bennett-Warner and Ajala’s Royal Court debuts, as well as the pair’s stage reunion after they appeared together in the Almeida theatre’s critically acclaimed Ruined.
Bennett-Warner will play daughter Alex following her 2010 high profile Donmar Warehouse role as one of the stage’s most famous daughters, Cordelia in King Lear. The Cast Histories actress’s other credits include Double Feature and Caroline, Or Change at the National Theatre.
Ajala has also worked at the National Theatre, appearing in Nation and Death And The King’s Horseman at the National Theatre. His previous work also includes Royal Shakespeare Company productions of Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Witness follows Bola Agbaje’s forthcoming satire Belong in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, which starts previews next week.