Matt Ryan returns to the Donmar to play Horatio. He previously appeared in Small Change. Ryan’s other theatre work includes Lovely & Misfit (Trafalgar Studios) and Sejanus, A New Way to Please You, Believe What You Will and Speaking Like Magpies (Royal Shakespeare Company). For television his credits include Wild Decembers, Collision, Torchwood, Consenting Adults, The Tudors and Mine All Mine; and for film, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Red Light Runners and Layer Cake.

Alex Waldmann plays Laertes. He is currently appearing in Twelfth Night, part of the Donmar West End season. His other theatre credits include Troilus and Cressida (Barbican), Angry Young Man (Trafalgar Studios and Edinburgh Festival), Macbeth (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Big Love (Gate Theatre).

Penelope Wilton returns to the Donmar to play Gertrude. Her other work for the Donmar includes The Family Reunion (part of the TS Eliot Festival), The Chalk Garden (Evening Standard Award for Best Actress), John Gabriel Borkman, The Little Foxes and A Kind of Alaska. Wilton’s other theatre credits include Women Beware Women (RSC), The House of Bernarda Alba (National Theatre) and Afterplay (The Gate, Dublin; Charleston, USA and West End). For television, her work includes Half Broken Things, Dr Who, Bob and Rose, Victoria and Albert and Wives and Daughters; and for film, The History Boys, Match Point, Pride and Prejudice, Calendar Girls and Iris.

Donmar Artistic Director Michael Grandage directs. Previous work for the Donmar includes Twelfth Night and Ivanov (both Donmar West End at the Wyndham’s Theatre – Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Director for Ivanov), The Chalk Garden (Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Director), Othello, John Gabriel Borkman, Don Juan in Soho, Frost/Nixon (also West End and Broadway), The Cut, The Wild Duck (Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director), Guys and Dolls (Donmar in the West End – Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production), Grand Hotel (Evening Standard Award for Best Director, Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production), Henry IV, After Miss Julie, Caligula (Olivier Award for Best Director) and The Vortex. Other West End work includes Evita. He was the Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres 1999 – 2005, where his work included Don Carlos (Evening Standard Award for Best Director).

Designs are by Christopher Oram, with lighting by Neil Austin, and the composer and sound designer is Adam Cork.