'Time turns, sets a backward course, starts for the start with speed: the fragile moments drop unravelling, reversing, unwound, back to the beginning.'
Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change.
Award-winning writer and director Robert Icke transforms Sophocles' epic tragedy into an essential and explosive political thriller.
First performed in Dutch in 2018 at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam and the Edinburgh International Festival, this arresting version of Oedipus received its English-language premiere at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in 2024, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, and starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. The production won Icke the Best Director Award at the 2025 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, as well as Best Actor and Best Actress for its leads.
Robert Icke is one of the most visionary figures in theatre today, celebrated for his contemporary re-imaginings of classic texts by Shakespeare, Schiller, Chekhov, Aeschylus and Ibsen.
'Robert Icke is the great hope of British theatre' Time Out
Recenzijos
'Electric... riveting from beginning to end... Icke has done an astonishing job... An old play is masterfully analysed and made newly devastating' * Guardian * 'Stunning... Icke brilliantly remakes Sophocles' profoundly disturbing tragedy for our times' * Financial Times * 'Wrenchingly tense... Icke invokes a sense of the past in a vivid contemporary milieu... an extraordinary evening... this show is mother****in' good' * Evening Standard * 'Riveting... a slew of smart ironies, with the mother of all twists... tragedy at its best' * Sunday Times * 'Lethal but compassionate... defiantly humane... a singularity of purpose that distils a famously lurid story into something empathetic, lucid and quite, quite devastating' * Time Out * 'Stunning razor-sharp and contemporary a blinding theatrical experience that remains seared on the retina' -- Lyn Gardner * Stagedoor * 'Electric... there will surely not be a more powerful production in the UK this year... a play for today' * Observer * 'Devastating... Icke ratchets up enough tension to cause gasps... he knows exactly how to create a realistic, involving drama while allowing the prefiguring dramatic irony of the language to foreshadow events. The result is as gripping as a thriller, yet weighted with the terrible sense of what might have been... a modern reminder of the power of Greek tragedy to lay bare all the grief of the human soul' * WhatsOnStage * 'Stylish and shattering... Icke's reworking is bold and affecting... The piece has a cumulative power that builds gradually until the atmosphere is riveting, suffocating and unbearably tense' * The Stage * 'A tantalisingly fresh take on the Greek tragedy... Icke's brilliant reimagining achieves the monumental feat of taking a Greek drama where (almost) everyone thinks they know what's going to happen, and turning it into an exercise in tension, one that etches its message with the painful efficiency of a tattoo gun... he makes it impossible to look away, even for a moment' * Independent * 'Startling... Icke's profound connection with the Greeks is once again made gloriously evident' * iNews * 'A devastating, seamless update of Sophocles... achieves a level of catharsis rare for any production of an ancient text' * New Statesman * 'Glorious... a delectably tragic and exquisitely horrifying piece of theatre... a devastating success' * Broadway World * 'Not just an adaptation but a radical reworking that is really a gripping new play... a dark story about real people, not a myth from the distant past' * British Theatre Guide *
Robert Icke is a writer and director. His recent productions include Judas, Children of Nora and Oedipus at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam; Player Kings (West End and UK tour); Enemy of the People (Park Avenue Armory); Animal Farm (UK tour); Ivanov (Schauspiel Stuttgart); and The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory, Adelaide Festival, Almeida, West End and Burgtheater, Vienna).
His work while Associate Director at the Almeida (2013-19) included adapting and directing The Wild Duck, Mary Stuart (also West End and UK tour), Uncle Vanya, Oresteia (also West End and Park Avenue Armory) and 1984 (co-created with Duncan Macmillan, also Broadway, West End, UK and international tours). As a director, his productions included Hamlet (also West End, BBC2 and Park Avenue Armory), The Fever and Mr Burns.
His awards include two Evening Standard Awards for Best Director, the Critics' Circle Award, the Kurt Hübner Award for his debut production in Germany, and the Olivier Award for Best Director for Oresteia, of which he is the youngest-ever winner. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Sophocles (c.496405 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian. Of his more than 120 plays, only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.
