Annette Badland leads the world premiere of Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Animals Come to the Table, directed by Anthony Lau in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from 11 December, a play in which the natural world summons humanity to account. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Shakespeare's Globe brings new writing into its candlelit indoor theatre this winter. The Animals Come to the Table, a new play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, receives its world premiere at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in December, directed by Anthony Lau and led by Annette Badland. It is a comedy of sorts with a serious purpose: the natural world has called a meeting, and humanity is expected to attend.
Who is starring in The Animals Come to the Table?
Annette Badland plays Bea and Nick Fletcher plays Percy. Simon Manyonda is Tony, Alex Young is Anna, Lydia Larson is Maude and Olivier Huband is Pan. Rosalind Ford and Tobias Martin-Clarke complete the company in the ensemble and as covers.
The production also has live music, played by Fred Thomas, who is musical director and plays percussion and double bass, with Meera Raja on cello, Alice Barron on violin and Sophie Creaner on woodwinds. The Globe first announced the company in the autumn, as we reported at the time; the theatre's current cast list now names Nick Fletcher as Percy.
Spotlight on Annette Badland
Badland's stage career began in Ian McKellen's Actors' Company and continued at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she played Audrey in As You Like It in the 1973 Stratford season. In 1993 she was nominated for an Olivier Award as best supporting actress for Sadie in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Aldwych Theatre, a part she repeated in the 1998 film Little Voice; the play itself is now revived at the National Theatre in a new production at the Dorfman. She went on to appear opposite Jude Law at the Young Vic in both 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Doctor Faustus. Television audiences know her from a long list of series, among them Bergerac, Doctor Who, EastEnders, Midsomer Murders and, more recently, Ted Lasso, in which she plays Mae. Here she leads the company in a play whose other parties include a chicken, a rat and a snow leopard, and few actors are better suited to keeping a straight face while the ground shifts beneath them. It is a good reason to see The Animals Come to the Table by candlelight.
What is The Animals Come to the Table about?
A negotiator and an interpreter are summoned to an emergency meeting held in secret. On the other side of the table sit a chicken, a rat, a snow leopard and a great many other voices from the natural world, and they have come with one demand: that the exploitation of the planet and the destruction of its ecology stop. The play imagines the point at which the earth finally answers back, and asks what it would mean for people to see the world from somewhere other than their own position.
The Globe describes the piece as funny, furious and unsettling, and Wertenbaker brings politics, philosophy and a good deal of mischief to it. The work began in 2023 as part of Burnt at the Stake, or the Whole of the Truth, a Globe project in which playwrights offered new work anonymously, and it was developed with the candlelit playhouse in mind. The theatre notes that the play contains references to sexual violence.
Who is behind the production?
Anthony Lau directs. He was associate artistic director of Sheffield Theatres from 2020 to 2024, and has also been an associate artistic director of the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme. Timberlake Wertenbaker, the writer, won an Olivier Award and a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Our Country's Good, and her other plays include The Love of the Nightingale, Three Birds Alighting on a Field and Jefferson's Garden.
Design is by Georgia Lowe, whose earlier Globe work includes Henry VIII and Macbeth. Elliot Griggs is the candlelight designer, Asaf Zohar composes the score, Aline David is movement director and Adam Wallis is voice coach. Casting is by Becky Paris with Alice Walters, and Sofia Gallucci is assistant director. Shakespeare's Globe produces.
When and where can I see it?
The Animals Come to the Table runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the indoor theatre beside the Globe on Bankside, from Friday 11 December 2026 to Sunday 24 January 2027, as part of the Globe's winter season. The running time is still to be confirmed. Under-16s must be accompanied by an adult and seated with them.
The playhouse seats its audience in galleries and a standing area, which accounts for the wide spread of prices. Tickets for The Animals Come to the Table currently start at £8.
What else should I book if I like it?
- Julius Caesar at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: the same candlelit room this winter, and another play about who gets a voice in the room where decisions are made. Our guide has the details.
- The Seagull at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, from 17 January 2027: Chekhov by candlelight, and the next play in the season.
- Pinocchio at the Globe Theatre, until 3 January 2027: the Globe's other new play this winter, and the one for younger audiences. Our guide covers it.
- Mother Russia at Hampstead Theatre, from 11 December 2026: another new play opening the same night, a sharp comedy about St Petersburg in 1992. Everything you need to know is here.
