Casting Announced for X at the Royal Court Theatre

Rudi Dharmalingam, Darrell D’Silva, James Harkness, Jessica Raine and Ria Zmitrowicz

Rudi Dharmalingam, Darrell D’Silva, James Harkness, Jessica Raine and Ria Zmitrowicz are to appear in X at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.

Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone directs Alistair McDowall’s new play set in a space station on Pluto.

“It’s a tax write-off. This is where they send the new, the underqualified, the old. And most of all the British. Mars is full of blonde Americans. It’s like they’re building the master race out there.”

Billions of miles from home, the lone research base on Pluto has lost contact with Earth. Unable to leave or send for help, the skeleton crew sit waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting long enough for time to start eating away at them. To lose all sense of it. To start seeing things in the dark outside.

With design by Merle Hensel, lighting by Lee Curran, composition and sound by Nick Powell and video by Tal Rosner.

X will be accompanied by three Big Idea events; freelance science writer and researcher Dr Mike Goldsmith discusses the possibility of life at the edge of the solar system, playwrights Inua Ellams and Stacey Gregg create short sound plays, and playwright Alistair McDowall will be in conversation with Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone.

X runs from 30 March - 7 May 2016 at the Jerwood Downstairs Space at the Royal Court. Book Now The Big Idea: Life on Pluto

Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

Wednesday 13 April, Post-show

Freelance science writer and researcher Dr Mike Goldsmith, author of New Horizons to Pluto, discusses the possibility, potential and experience of life at the edge of the solar system. Does it exist? Could it exist? What would it feel like?

Free with a ticket to the performance of X that day.

The Big Idea: Nod If You Can Hear Me

Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

Friday 15, 22 & 29 April and Friday 6 May, Post-show

Theatre writers Inua Ellams and Stacey Gregg create short sound plays imagined for an impossible space, witnessed in the dark, late at night in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.

£5 or free with a ticket to a performance of X that day.

The Big Idea: Alistair McDowall in conversation

Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

Tuesday 19 April, Post-show

Playwright Alistair McDowall will be in conversation with Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone.

Free with a ticket to the performance of X that day.