Edward Hall announces Jude as his final Hampstead Theatre show as artistic director

Outgoing artistic director Edward Hall has announced the final production he will direct at Hampstead Theatre.

Running from April, Hall will oversee the world premiere of Howard Brenton's Jude, a play about a cleaner who is about to be fired from her job for stealing a volume of Euripides' works. It then transpires that she is an expert self-taught ancient Greek reader. Brenton returns to the venue following Lawrence After Arabia in 2016 and #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei in 2013.

Jude runs from 23 April to 1 June 2019, with casting and creative team to be announced.

Roy Williams' hit play The Firm will return to the Hampstead Downstairs in May following a sell-out run in 2017. Set in a pub in South London, the play follows a formerly notorious criminal gang who reunite after 12 years apart. The piece is directed by Denis Lawson (The Meeting) and runs from 3 May to 8 June.

Casting has also been announced for the world premiere of Kellie Smith's Wilderness, directed by Anna Ledwich in what will be her 11th Hampstead Theatre production.

Appearing in the show will be Richard Frame, Natalie Klamar, Allison McKenzie and Finlay Robertson. The play follows two people who are deeply scarred by their own parents' separations. It runs in the Downstairs space from 21 March to 27 April.