Sheffield Theatres has released production photographs of King Lear at the Crucible, with Ian McDiarmid in the title role and Titas Halder directing. The run ends on Saturday 19 September.
The first production photographs of King Lear at the Crucible are out, and they arrive on press night. Johan Persson took them.
Ian McDiarmid plays Lear. Titas Halder, associate artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse, directs — his previous work includes The Dance of Death. The production opened on Saturday 29 August and runs at the Crucible until Saturday 19 September 2026.
Around McDiarmid: David Birrell as Gloucester, Mark Holgate as Kent, Bebe Sanders as Cordelia, Justina Kehinde as Regan and Katie Wimpenny as Goneril. Fode Simbo is Edmund, Harry Redding is Edgar and Max Revell is the Fool, with Milo Twomey as Albany, Jay Saighal as Cornwall, Sachin K Sharma as France and the Captain, James Chetwood as Oswald, Christopher Jordan as Curan and Hazel Monaghan as swing.
It is a Sheffield Theatres production in association with MGC, which brings Michael Grandage back to the building he once ran as artistic director.
The design team is Richard Kent (set and costume), Ryan Day (lighting), Sarah Angliss (composer) and Emma Laxton (sound), with Yarit Dor as fight, movement and intimacy director and Enric Ortuño as associate fight director. Matilda James cast it, Sophie Duncan is dramaturg, Vicky Moran associate director, Barbara Houseman voice and text coach and Marc Small assistant director.
Lear is half of a Shakespeare double bill this autumn, played by one company across both. Twelfth Night, directed by Jamie Glover, follows in the same house from Saturday 10 to Saturday 31 October 2026, with a press night on Friday 16 October.
Sheffield has a habit of sending work onwards — Standing at the Sky’s Edge went from the Crucible to the National Theatre and then the West End, and Life of Pi and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie both started there.
Production photos of King Lear at the Crucible
King Lear runs at the Crucible, Sheffield until Saturday 19 September 2026. Access performances are an audio described matinee on Friday 11 September at 7.15pm and Saturday 19 September at 1.30pm, captioned on Saturday 12 September at 7.15pm, relaxed on Wednesday 16 September at 1.30pm and signed on Friday 18 September at 7.15pm.
