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Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit, Red Rabbit turns 15 this year: but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger as it plots a fresh West End run with some truly massive names.
The playwright has made a career out of ‘cold read’ plays, that is to say mischievous works designed to be performed by a different actor each night who has never seen the show before and doesn’t know what’s coming, and is therefore responding to the prompts and text given to them live and for the first (and only) time. Although this has become Soleimanpour’s hallmark, in White Rabbit, Red Rabbit there was a particularly pointed reason: the actor was literally acting as a stand-in for the playwright, who at that time had been forbidden from leaving his home country of Iran.
The play has never really dated, and indeed with Iran so grimly back in world news it remains a playful, grimly fascinating look at everyday life under its controlling, paranoid regime.
More to the point, bigger and bigger names keep wanting to do it, and it returns for 2026 with a fresh host of slebs on board as it settles in for a West End residency under the auspices of new production company There & Then, formed by Soleimanpour and his regular director Omar Elerian.
Running at the Duchess Theatre on Mondays (when its regular show The Play That Goes Wrong isn’t on), it will go on for several months, and we don’t have every celebrity name yet. But we do have a lot of them, including such heavy hitters as David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker and Riz Ahmed. And unlike similar events where the identity of the night’s celebrity isn’t revealed until the show stars, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is quite free about its schedule – meaning if you want to get down to see you big name fave, you’d better book post haste.
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit 2026 celebrity cast
The schedule so far is:
- Jun 8 – David Harewood
- Jun 15 – David Tennant
- Jun 22 – Jo Joyner
- Jun 29 – Asim Chaudhry
- Jul 6 – Luke Thompson
- Jul 13 – Jodie Whittaker
- Jul 20 – Kathryn Hunter
- Jul 27 – Kunal Nayyar
- Sep 21 – Archie Madekwe
- Sep 28 – Riz Ahmed (Bait)
Duchess Theatre, Jun 8-Nov 2.
The best new London theatre show to book for in 2026
Plus: the Young Vic has announced a stunning new season featuring Thelma & Louise and Ben Whishaw.
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