Oedipus

Robert Icke to direct Helen Mirren and Mark Strong in Oedipus in the West End

Will Longman
Will Longman

Helen Mirren and Mark Strong will star in Robert Icke's adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus in the West End next year.

Produced by Sonia Friedman, the production will run in London following its premiere at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, where Ivo van Hove is director, before a run at Edinburgh International Festival last year where it was performed with English surtitles.

The Daily Mail reports that the adaptation will be revised and translated into English when it opens in the West End, where a theatre and dates for the run are yet to be confirmed.

Oedipus will reunite actor Mark Strong and director Icke following their work on David Hare's adaptation of The Red Barn at the National Theatre in 2016. Strong's previous West End work includes Death of a Salesman and Frankenstein at the National Theatre, and his Olivier Award-winning role in A View From the Bridge.

Mirren will return to the West End for the first time since she played Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience at the Gielgud in 2013. Her other theatre credits include the titular role in Phedre and Christine Mnnon in Mourning Becomes Electra at the National Theatre's Lyttelton.

Sophocles' play premiered around 429 BC, and is chronologically the first of three plays that deal with the character of Oedipus, the mythical Greek king of Thebes who accidentally fulfils a tragic prophecy.

Dates, a theatre and ticket details for Oedipus are yet to be announced.

Images courtesy Gage Skidmore: Flickr & Flickr

Originally published on

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