Old Vic 2027 season to open with Damian Lewis as Henry V

Rupert Goold begins his tenure as artistic director with a ‘provocative’ version of Shakespeare’s history play, followed by shows starring Milly Alcock and Arinzé Kene

Damian Lewis is to play Henry V at the Old Vic in London in the first production under the theatre’s new artistic director, Rupert Goold.

Goold will direct what is billed as a “provocative” version of Shakespeare’s history play that challenges “what makes a leader a legend”. It will be Lewis’s first major theatre role since he starred in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? almost 10 years ago. He has previously played Romeo and Hamlet on stage, as well as appearing in Cymbeline and Much Ado About Nothing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Henry V, with a set design by Miriam Buether, will have its first performance on 26 January. It will be followed by a version of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, adapted and directed by Rebecca Frecknall, the Old Vic’s new associate director. The adaptation, Julie, was originally produced by the celebrated Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, with whom the Old Vic will pursue an ongoing artistic partnership. Milly Alcock (Supergirl) will take the lead role.

In the summer, Goold will direct a revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s satirical musical Assassins, about historical attempts to murder the president of the US. Arinzé Kene will then star as a wronged horse-dealer in Kohlhaas, based on a novella by Marco Baliani and Remo Rostagno, translated and directed by Omar Elerian. Kohlhaas was staged at Brighton festival earlier this year, where it received a five-star Guardian review.

Goold said his first season “speaks to the Old Vic’s rich history of classical theatre, European repertoire and musical revivals” and that he hopes to draw on its “storied legacy of sensational acting in groundbreaking and accessible productions”. The Old Vic, a not-for-profit theatre that is a charity, “has always sat between the subsidised and commercial sectors, dancing to its own distinctive tune” he added, and is “innately a maverick playhouse”.

A new ticketing scheme, Old Vic New Rush, will offer front row tickets for £20 for the first five previews of every main-house show. Laura Stevenson, executive director of the theatre, said the scheme was part of their ambition “to be a welcoming place for people of all ages to experience the joy and power of theatre”.

Goold joined the Old Vic after his tenure at the Almeida theatre, now run by Dominic Cooke. London theatre is undergoing a fresh period of leadership change, with Michelle Terry announcing her departure from Shakespeare’s Globe and Tom Littler leaving the Orange Tree theatre to run the Arts theatre in Cambridge.