Matthew Tennyson, Samuel Creasey, Kirsty Rider and Lucy McCormick give Lauren Yee's post-Soviet comedy Mother Russia its UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre from 11 December, in a production directed by Oscar Toeman. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Mother Russia, Lauren Yee's comedy about two young men making their fortune in the year after the Soviet Union fell, reaches the UK for the first time when it opens in Hampstead Downstairs in December. It arrives with a company of four and a reputation from New York, where it ran at Signature Theatre earlier this year.
Who is starring in Mother Russia?
Matthew Tennyson plays Evgeny, the friend whose professional interest in the woman he is watching becomes something else, and Samuel Creasey is Dmitri, his partner in the new business of surveillance. Kirsty Rider plays Katya, the young woman they are paid to watch, and Lucy McCormick takes the title role of Mother Russia herself.
It is a company with some range. Creasey was named Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and has played in The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe; McCormick's recent work includes Are You Watching at the Royal Court; Rider has been part of the company of Further Than The Furthest Thing at the Young Vic. Hampstead named the full cast in October, as we reported at the time.
Spotlight on Matthew Tennyson
Hampstead audiences will remember Tennyson as the young A. E. Housman opposite Simon Russell Beale in the theatre's revival of Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love. His career has been notable for its range rather than its noise. He won the Evening Standard's award for outstanding newcomer in 2012 for Making Noise Quietly at the Donmar Warehouse, played Puck at the Globe the following year, took the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Salomé and led A Monster Calls at the Old Vic. More recently he was Edgar in King Lear at the Almeida. Screen audiences will know him from The Hollow Crown, the film Pride and Terence Davies's Benediction, in which he played Wilfred Owen. Evgeny asks something different of him: a comic lead who has to conduct a romance, at least at first, as an eavesdropper. It is a part that rewards exactly the stillness he has made his own, and it is the best reason to book Mother Russia early.
What is Mother Russia about?
The play opens in St Petersburg in 1992. The old system has gone, and the new one has arrived in the shape of fast food, imported contraceptives and an absurd surplus of toothpaste brands. Evgeny and Dmitri, old friends on the edge of adult life, conclude that the real money now lies in espionage and protection rackets, and they set about getting rich.
Their first assignment is to keep watch on Katya, who has lived in the West and brought back a past of her own. Evgeny falls for her almost at once, which leaves him with a problem no romantic comedy has quite had to solve: how to declare himself to someone who has no idea he has been listening to her every conversation. Beneath the jokes sits a larger question, and Yee asks it with some bite, about whether a free market brings the personal freedoms it advertises.
Yee has described the play as part of a cycle about twentieth-century communism in Asia and its collision with Western pop culture; The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band are the earlier entries. Reviewing the New York staging, The New York Times called it "a new play that's as funny as it's smart". The production carries an age guidance of 14+, and contains strong language and references to death, guns, violence, war and suicide.
Who is behind the production?
Oscar Toeman directs, making his Hampstead debut. He was Baylis Director at the Old Vic, and his recent stage work includes Double Indemnity on tour, Hundred Feet Tall for the Old Vic and Farewell Mr Haffman at the Park Theatre. Design is by Alys Whitehead, with lighting by Jamie Platt and sound by Max Pappenheim. Helen T Mariam is the Birkbeck resident assistant director. Hampstead Theatre produces, and its chief executive Greg Ripley-Duggan has said he thought it would sit well alongside Jumpers on the Main Stage.
When and where can I see it?
Mother Russia runs in Hampstead Downstairs, the studio space at Hampstead Theatre on Eton Avenue in Swiss Cottage, from Friday 11 December 2026 to Saturday 30 January 2027, with press night on Thursday 17 December 2026. Evening performances start at 7.45pm, with 2.45pm matinees on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays across most of the run.
Captioned performances are on Wednesday 27 January 2027 at 7.45pm and Thursday 28 January 2027 at 2.45pm. Downstairs is a small room and several dates are already marked as selling fast. Tickets for Mother Russia currently start at £34.
What else should I book if I like it?
- Jumpers at Hampstead Theatre, until 23 January 2027: the same building's Main Stage, and another comedy of ideas with a philosopher at its centre. Our guide to the revival has the details.
- The Lives of Others at the Adelphi Theatre, until 9 January 2027: the other side of the surveillance story, a Stasi officer listening in on East Berlin, played for tension rather than laughs. We looked at the history behind it.
- The Animals Come to the Table at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, from 11 December 2026: another new play opening the same night, in which the natural world calls humanity to account.
