The award-winning theatre company imitating the dog has announced full casting for the premiere of its bold and contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells’s iconic science fiction tale War of the Worlds, touring from 5 February to 2 May 2026.
The cast includes Bonnie Baddoo (All of Us, Royal National Theatre; Alex Rider, Eleventh Hour Films), Morgan Bailey (Night of the Living Dead™ – Remix, imitating the dog; SAS: Rogue Heroes, BBC), Gareth Cassidy (Marvellous, @sohoplace; The Card, Claybody Theatre and New Vic Theatre), and Amy Dunn (Edward II, Royal Shakespeare Company; Hushabye Mountain, Hope Mill Theatre).
Four performers enter the stage and construct an epic road movie before our eyes.
It’s a story we know or think we know—an apocalyptic tale of alien invasion and the unfolding destruction of everything we hold dear.
Extraterrestrial lifeforms land from the skies. Lines of Brits scrabble to flee across the channel while their cities and towns lie in smouldering ruins.
It’s all of our worst nightmares.
What would you do if order broke down? What would you do to survive? How far would you go to protect your own?
Using miniature environments, model worlds, camera tricks and projection, imitating the dog mix the live and the recorded, the animate and the inanimate to create a thrilling, audacious and timely retelling of H.G. Wells’s classic novel.
Following their acclaimed adaptations of literary classics Heart of Darkness (2018), Dracula (2021), Macbeth (2023) and Frankenstein (2024), imitating the dog are set to push their creative storytelling to new heights.
imitating the dog have been making ground-breaking work for theatres and other spaces for 27 years.
Their work, which fuses live performance with digital technology, has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people in venues, outdoor festivals, and events across the world.
Past productions have included Hotel Methuselah, A Farewell to Arms, Heart of Darkness, Night of The Living Dead™ – Remix, the award-winning Dracula: The Untold Story, Frankenstein, and most recently, All Blood Runs Red.
In 2022 the company staged Cinema Inferno, a ground-breaking new show for the Parisian haute couture house Maison Margiela, based on an original concept by creative director John Galliano, for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal 2022 collection, presented on the official Paris Haute Couture Calendar.
Created by imitating the dog’s co-artistic directors Andrew Quick, Simon Wainwright and Pete Brooks, War of the Worlds will premiere at Cast, Doncaster from 5–7 February before touring to BEAM, Hertford (11–14 February); The Dukes, Lancaster (18–21 February); Lowry, Salford (25–28 February); Liverpool Playhouse (4–7 March); New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich (11–14 March); Belgrade Theatre, Coventry (18–21 March); Theatr Clwyd, Mold (15–18 April); Blackpool Grand Theatre (22–25 April) and The Arts Theatre Cambridge (29 April–2 May).
The production will also tour to Switzerland in April.
War of the Worlds is supported by Lancaster Arts and Cast, Doncaster.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
