Shakespeare’s Globe has named the company for The Animals Come to the Table, a world premiere by Timberlake Wertenbaker that opens by candlelight in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in December. Annette Badland and Finbar Lynch head a cast of eight for director Anthony Lau.
Shakespeare’s Globe has announced the cast and creative team for The Animals Come to the Table, the world premiere of a new play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, which opens in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse this winter. It is directed by Anthony Lau, whose production of Man and Boy was seen at the National Theatre.
The play began life in 2023 as part of Burnt at the Stake, or the Whole of the Truth, the Globe project in which playwrights were invited to offer new work anonymously, and it continues a line of new writing at a theatre that has staged more than 45 world premieres since it opened in 1997. The premise is a negotiation. The animals summon humanity to the table, and waiting there is a chorus of voices from the natural world demanding an end to exploitation and to ecological destruction.
Annette Badland plays Bea and Finbar Lynch plays Percy. Alex Young is Anna, Lydia Larson is Maude, Olivier Huband is Pan and Simon Manyonda is Tony, with Rosalind Ford and Tobias Martin-Clarke completing the company as ensemble and covers.
Badland is a familiar presence at Bankside, with Globe credits that include Burnt at the Stake, Edward II and The Winter’s Tale, and Huband has appeared there in The Tempest, The Duchess of Malfi and Much Ado About Nothing. For Martin-Clarke, a recent graduate of Guildford School of Acting, the production marks a professional stage debut.
Lau said: “Timberlake is one of the foremost dramatists of contemporary theatre and has written a searing call to arms that examines our human relationship with the natural world. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse walks the line between past and present, and there could be no more fitting an area in which to wrestle with what the future holds for us all. Funny, unnerving, and an exercise of the imaginative near future brought to life, it is a real thrill to collaborate with Timberlake on her new play. It is with real excitement that this play is part of Shakespeare’s Globe’s winter season, and it is testament to both the building and Timberlake’s commitment to incendiary drama that entertains and provokes in equal measure.”
The designer is Georgia Lowe and the candlelight designer is Elliot Griggs. Asaf Zohar composes, Aline David is movement director and Adam Wallis is voice, with Sofia Gallucci as assistant director. Casting is by Becky Paris CDG, head of casting at Shakespeare’s Globe.
The Animals Come to the Table runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from Friday 11 December 2026 to Sunday 24 January 2027, with press night on Thursday 17 December 2026. Captioned, audio-described, BSL-interpreted and relaxed performances are scheduled across the run in January.
