The Royal Shakespeare Company has revealed full casting for its 2026 production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, with double Olivier Award winner Mark Gatiss starring as the charismatic but dangerous gangster Arturo Ui.
BAFTA winning actor and comedian Mawaan Rizwan makes his first RSC appearance as the violent Giri, alongside Kadiff Kirwan as Ui’s devoted henchman Roma. They join Janie Dee as Betty Dullfeet, Christopher Godwin as Dogsborough and LJ Parkinson as Givola.
The cast also includes Joe Alessi, Valerie Antwi, Mark Hammersley, Rebekah Hinds, Cameron Johnson, Samuel Nunes de Souza, Mahesh Parmar, Santino Smith and Amanda Wilkin.
Directed by Seán Linnen in a new version by Stephen Sharkey, the production is described as a riotous gangster spectacle set in the criminal underworld of Chicago. The play offers a sharply contemporary warning about the rise of tyranny.
Director Seán Linnen said: “To make my RSC directorial debut with The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is an honour and a galvanising responsibility. Brecht’s play is a howl from history begging us to do things differently and reminding us that tyranny doesn’t arrive fully formed; it creeps in through charm, complicity and silence.”
He added: “What’s thrilling about bringing this production to the Swan is the chance to stage it, not as a history lesson, but as a living, breathing provocation to the world we are living in. With Stephen Sharkey’s razor-sharp version, Placebo’s darkly seductive score and this extraordinary company led by Mark Gatiss, we’re leaning into the play’s ferocious wit and theatricality, its music, its mischief, and its danger.
“As the threat from the far-right grows daily at home and abroad, it is our job as artists to speak up and out. There is no other play that interrogates the global political moment we are living through more than this one, and I’m so lucky to have such fearless and formidable collaborators to bring this production to life.”
The creative team includes Seán Linnen, Georgia Lowe, Robbie Butler, Placebo’s Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal, Johnny Edwards, Jennifer Jackson, Haruka Kuroda, Christopher Worrall, Richie Hart, Charmian Hoare, Harry Whitham and Mandeep Glover.
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui runs at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from 11 April to 30 May, with press night on 21 April. It marks the first staging of the play in the Company’s history.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
