With Guards at the Taj currently running at the venue, and Twelfth Night in rehearsals, Orange Tree Theatre (OT) today announces full casting for the world première of Churchill in Moscow by Howard Brenton directed by OT Artistic Director Tom Littler.
Joining the previously announced Roger Allam as Winston Churchill are Alan Cox as Archie Clerk Kerr, Julius D’Silva as Vyacheslav Molotov, Peter Forbes as Joseph Stalin, Tamara Greatrex as Svetlana Stalin, Jo Herbert as Sally Powell and Elisabeth Snegir as Olga Dovzhenko.
Churchill in Moscow, which reunites Brenton and Littler for their sixth collaboration, opens on 11 February 2025, with previews from 3 February, and runs until 8 March. They previously worked together on Cancelling Socrates, The Blinding Light and Brenton’s adaptations of Strindberg’s Dances of Death, Miss Julie and Creditors. This new historical thriller explores the meetings between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at the Kremlin in 1942.
Tom Littler said today, “I’m delighted to be working with an inspiring company of actors to join Roger Allam in Howard Brenton’s new play – Churchill in Moscow. Tamara Greatrex is the latest actor to make her professional theatre debut at the Orange Tree. Many of this cast have appeared in Howard’s work before, and they share my excitement about this project: it is an exciting, thought-provoking and hugely entertaining insight into a resonant historical episode.”
The Kremlin, Moscow, 1942. A top-secret meeting between Winston Churchill (Allam) and Joseph Stalin (Forbes): one, a wealthy aristocrat from a blue-blooded line of English nobility, the other a Georgian peasant, hell-bent on destroying capitalism and the class system. Can they find common ground? As diplomats struggle to control the escalating chaos, two interpreters find themselves caught in the eye of the storm.
The world première of Howard Brenton’s gripping drama imagines the meetings between two unpredictable titans as history teeters on a knife-edge.
Churchill in Moscow is at Orange Tree Theatre 3 February – 8 March 2025
Following its run at the OT, Churchill in Moscow will be available to stream through OT On Screen from Tuesday 11 – Friday 14 March.