Joe Lycett and Olivia Cooke are the latest names to take on White Rabbit Red Rabbit sight unseen, and the play's Monday-night residency at the Duchess Theatre has been extended to 14 December.
Two more performers have signed up to walk on stage without knowing a word of what they are about to say. Joe Lycett opens the sealed envelope on Monday 2 November, and Olivia Cooke follows on Monday 23 November, in White Rabbit Red Rabbit at the Duchess Theatre.
Demand has bought the run more time, too. The weekly residency, staged to mark 15 years of Nassim Soleimanpour's play, now continues until 14 December.
Lycett, the comedian and presenter whose television work includes Live from the Lycett Arms and Celebrity Traitors, is the first of the pair. Cooke, known to screen audiences from House of the Dragon and Slow Horses, takes her turn three weeks later.
The October Mondays were already spoken for: Riz Ahmed (Bait) on 12 October, Nish Kumar (The Mash Report) on 19 October and John Bradley (Game of Thrones) on 26 October. Names for the final weeks of the run have yet to be announced.
They join a London season that began in June with Lucian Msamati and has since handed the envelope to David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, Mel Giedroyc, Christopher Eccleston and, on 5 October, Steve Pemberton.
The format has not changed since the play was first performed in 2011. Each night the script is handed over in an envelope on stage, and the performer reads it for the first time in front of the audience, with no rehearsal and no director. Nobody does it twice, so every evening is shaped by whoever is holding the pages.
Soleimanpour wrote it while he was barred from leaving Iran, and its questions about obedience, choice and the freedom to speak have travelled a long way since. It has now been given more than 4,000 times and translated into over 25 languages, with Whoopi Goldberg, Cynthia Nixon, Michael Sheen, Ken Loach, Lenny Henry, Daisy Edgar-Jones and David Harewood among those who have read it cold.
This run is the first production from There & Then, the new company set up by Soleimanpour with director Omar Elerian, whose credits include Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and Rhinoceros. The two have worked together for a decade, including on the cold-read pieces ECHO and NASSIM, and are joined by executive producer Roz Coleman and producing advisor Malú Ansaldo. The production is presented in association with Nica Burns.
White Rabbit Red Rabbit is booking now at the Duchess Theatre, 3-5 Catherine Street, with one performance every Monday at 7.30pm and tickets from £25.
