Kate Winslet, Brian Cox, Ambika Mod and Baroness Helena Kennedy are among the final names for The Pelicot Trial, the documentary play drawn from the Gisèle Pelicot rape trial, which has a single UK performance at London County Hall on 30 November 2026.
The Young Vic has completed the company for The Pelicot Trial, which receives its UK premiere at London County Hall on Monday 30 November 2026. Written and directed by Milo Rau and Servane Dècle, the piece lasts four and a half hours and runs from 6pm to 10.30pm, for one performance only.
Fourteen names join the company today: Brian Cox, Lindsay Duncan, Misan Harriman, Suzy Eddie Izzard, Lennie James, Baroness Helena Kennedy, George MacKay, Tobias Menzies, Ambika Mod, John Simm, Indira Varma, Ellie Wilson, Kate Winslet and Harriet Wistrich. The countertenor Hugh Cutting also takes part.
They read alongside the first readers, announced in October: Adjoa Andoh, Nicole Ansari-Cox, Lorraine Ashbourne, Leo Bill, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Alfred Enoch, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Rosie Jones, Kadiff Kirwan, Rosie O'Donnell, Tamzin Outhwaite, Jordan Stephens, Juliet Stevenson, Samuel West and Olivia Williams. In all, 30 artists and public figures take part.
The text is built from the record of the case: testimony and written accounts from the trial, police files, social commentary and the psychiatric reports on the 51 men prosecuted in Gisèle Pelicot's case, which concerned her repeated rape while she was unconscious, in the small town of Mazan in the south of France. Her decision to make the trial public, and her words "Shame has to change sides", made her a symbol of resilience and of the fight against sexual violence.
Rau and Dècle developed the play with journalists, anthropologists and local feminist organisations in France. It was first performed on 18 June 2025 at the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna, and has since been staged in Avignon, New York, Lisbon, Milan and Bergen, each time for a single night and with a different company of readers in every city. Production dramaturgy is by Nastasia Griese.
The London performance is presented by the Young Vic with Eleanor Lloyd Productions and Rebecca Stafford Productions, and is supported by the Olwyn Foundation for Women and Girls and Rosalind Riley. Rape Crisis and the Centre for Women's Justice are the charity partners, and will be on hand to support audience members on the night.
It takes place in The Chamber at County Hall, the courtroom setting that is home to Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution. Our guide to the production has more background on the piece and its creators.
Tickets for The Pelicot Trial at London County Hall have sold out, but the performance will be live-streamed worldwide, free of charge, on the Young Vic's YouTube channel from 6pm to 10.30pm on Monday 30 November 2026.
