Dash Arts will tour its critically acclaimed production The Reckoning early next year, returning to London to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine.
Written by Anastasiia Kosodii and Josephine Burton, and directed by Burton, The Reckoning is based on verified witness testimonies gathered by Ukrainian journalists through The Reckoning Project archive. The production will visit the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Chichester Festival Theatre and Arcola Theatre in London between 28 January and 27 February.
Performed by two Ukrainian actors alongside two British actors, the production follows a journalist travelling to a small town outside Kyiv to interview The Man from Stoyanka, a security guard who remained after others had fled. Through storytelling, music, movement and live cooking on stage, the play explores war, survival and the search for truth.
Each performance concludes with a five-minute reflection from a journalist, lawyer or someone with direct experience of the conflict, while audiences are served Ukrainian salad prepared during the performance.
The production premiered at Arcola Theatre in May 2025, earning critical acclaim and an Offie nomination for Best Creation. The Guardian described it as “a forensic charge sheet in dramatic form” in a four-star review.
Director and co-writer Josephine Burton said, “Making The Reckoning reminded me that theatre can do something that neither journalism nor the law can do alone, it can make an audience feel the weight of a single life, in the room, right now. With this tour, returning to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the full-scale invasion, that urgency feels more acute than ever. We owe it to the people whose stories we carry to keep telling them, and to find new audiences to hear them.”
Co-writer Anastasiia Kosodii added, “The stories we tell in this play are true. This play is clearly an act of political art. Yet at the same time, it exists in a universal dimension that each of us can understand – we all know about love, loss, courage and cowardice, the longing for what is currently out of reach, fear, and the stubborn determination to move forward in spite of that fear.”
The creative team includes composer Anton Baibakov, set designer Zoë Hurwitz, lighting designer Joshua Pharo, movement director Josie Daxter, costume designer Olivia Jamieson and sound designer Bella Kear.
Founded in 2005 by Josephine Burton and Tim Supple, Dash Arts has spent more than two decades creating international collaborations with artists from around the world. The Reckoning represents the company’s most sustained engagement to date with the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Performed in English and Ukrainian with live translation, The Reckoning runs for 90 minutes without an interval and is recommended for audiences aged 14 and over.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
