Hard Times tells the story of Louisa, a beautiful girl who, at the age of just 18, is forced to marry a man she detests while watching her brother descend into gambling addiction. Factory worker Stephen Blackpool hides the endless repercussions of a shameful early marriage, while his factory co-workers bay for his blood. The arrival of handsome James Harthouse unleashes the desires of these isolated lives, casting them from the dark mills of Coketown into the high-spirited world of the Victorian circus.

Icon Theatre brings buckets of energy, original new music, projection, movement and puppetry to this new adaptation of Dickens's Hard Times, staged at the Warehouse theatre.

Among the Hard Times cast are Tom Peters, James Hyland and Raewyn Lippert. Peters's previous credits include The London Cuckolds and Ivanov at the National Theatre. Hyland played Derek Jarman in Jarman Garden at the Riverside Studios. Lippert previously appeared in Icon Theatre's The Odyssey.

Hard Times director Nancy Hirst has credits including Five Fabulous Brothers (Young Vic), Violent Outing (Soho theatre) and My Boy Jack (UK tour).