Donmar Warehouse announces new season including Keeley Hawes, Adeel Akhtar and more

Artistic director Michael Longhurst has unveiled his final season at the Donmar Warehouse. 

Longhurst, who will finish his five-year tenure at the venue in early 2024, will open the new year with the world premiere of Lucy Kirkwood’s new play The Human Body, which he co-directs with Ann Yee. 

Kirkwood (described by Longhurst in an interview with us yesterday as “one of our best writers…hands down”), will make her Donmar debut with the piece, which is set during the birth of the NHS in the 1940s and follows a romantic frisson between a Labour councillor GP and a local lad who has made it big in Hollywood. 

Set to star in the show will be Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) and Jack Davenport (Call My Agent!), with the piece running from 16 February to 13 April. Joining Longhurst and Yee on the creative team are designer Fly Davis, lighting designer Joshua Pharo, sound designers and composers Ben and Max Ringham, fight director Kate Waters and casting director Anna Cooper. 

Following this up will be a new version of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, adapted for the stage and directed by the award-winning Benedict Andrews (responsible for A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters at the Young Vic). 

Chekhov’s show about familial decay and social upheaval, running from 26 April to 22 June, is to star Nina Hoss (Tár) and Adeel Akhtar (Sherwood) as Liubov Ranevskaya and Ermolai Lopakhin respectively. 

Also part of the production are designer Magda Willi, costume designer Merle Hensel, lighting designer James Farncombe, sound designer Dan Balfour and casting director Anna Cooper. 

Completing the trio of new plays will be the European premiere of Eboni Booth’s hit off-Broadway play Primary Trust, directed by Matthew Xia. Following a man whose life is upended following the closure of his bookstore employer, it runs from 28 June to 24 August. 

During the show’s run, the venue will also present Donmar OpenHouse, a weekend of free performances and events for school and community groups in the Camden and Westminster areas, as well as early career and emerging theatre artists, and young people. This will take place from 11 to 13 July. 

Yesterday, the venue announced plans to transfer its hit production of Next to Normal to the West End. 

You can read our full-length interview with Longhurst here.