Hampstead Theatre unveils the full cast for its upcoming production of Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love. Directed by Blanche McIntyre the show will run at Hampstead Theatre from 4 December 2024 to 25 January 2025.
Joining the previously announced Simon Russell Beale as A E Housman is Matthew Tennyson (King Lear, Almeida; A Monster Calls, Old Vic) as the young Housman.
The cast will also include Dickie Beau (Re-member Me; Botticelli in the Fire, Hampstead Theatre) as Oscar Wilde; Stephen Boxer (The Box of Delights, RSC) as Dr Jowett/Labouchère, Jonnie Broadbent (Much Ado About Nothing, Globe) as Walter Pater/Frank Harris, Seamus Dillane (Bridgerton) as Pollard and Florence Dobson (A Mirror, West End; Bridgerton) as Katharine Housman.
Peter Landi (Witness for the Prosecution, West End; Ted Lasso) as Pattison/Postgate, Ben Lloyd-Hughes (Kiss Me, Hampstead Theatre) as Moses Jackson, Michael Marcus (The Merchant of Venice; Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) as Chamberlain/Ellis, Dominic Rowan (The Divine Mrs S, Hampstead Theatre) as John Ruskin/W. T. Stead/Jerome K. Jerome and Alan Williams (Till The Stars Come Down, National Theatre) as Charon complete the cast.
In Tom Stoppard’s play, A E Housman is, as he understands it, finally dead. The noted Latin scholar and celebrated poet of A Shropshire Lad is being ferried across the Styx to Hades – but beyond the stygian gloom on the other side of the river he finds, to his surprise, the Oxford University of his youth. Alive with the academic debates that shaped his work and the friendships that shaped his life this is the Oxford of Ruskin and Pater, a place still marked by the brilliance of a recently departed student called Wilde…
Tom Stoppard returns to Hampstead after the triumphant revivals of Hapgood and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Winner of eight Evening Standard, three Olivier and five Tony Awards, Stoppard’s plays include Leopoldstadt; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia.
Director Blanche McIntyre will be joined by designer Morgan Large, lighting designer Peter Mumford, composer and sound designer Max Pappenheim, movement director Polly Bennett and assistant director, Matt Dann. The casting director is Anna Cooper CDG.
The Invention of Love plays the Main Stage at Hampstead Theatre from 4 December 2024 to 25 January 2025 with a press night performance on Monday 16 December.
Also playing Hampstead Theatre in the Downstairs studio from 15 November 2024 to 4 January is the UK premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s King James directed by Hampstead Theatre Associate Director Alice Hamilton.
Tickets are available from hampsteadtheatre.com
