The Prime Minister has been assassinated, along with his cabinet. England’s most highly respected and well-loved writers are being systematically culled. Meanwhile, a university don is trying hard to please his academic friends while worrying about marriage, sex, anagrams and the meaning of life.

The Philanthropist was written as a direct response to Moliere’s The Misanthrope, and takes a wry look at the insular lives of college intellectuals. The cutting ‘bourgeois comedy’ was first performed in 1970 at the Royal Court.

Simon Russell Beale returns to the Donmar Warehouse for the first time since the multi-award winning double bill of Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night in this production. The actor, considered one of the best stage practitioners of his generation, has recent West End credits including Macbeth (Almeida) and Jumpers (National & Piccadilly).