Cast announced for Bent at the National Theatre

Casting has been announced for the one-off performance of Martin Sherman's play Bent, which will receive a rehearsed reading in the Lyttelton on Sunday 9 July.

Stephen Daldry will direct a cast including George Mackay (The Caretaker, Old Vic), Simon Russell Beale (The Tempest, RSC), Giles Terera (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Donmar), Pip Torrens (The Crown, Netflix), Paapa Essiedu (Hamlet, RSC), John Pfumojena (Peter Pan, NT) and Adrian Grove (wonder.land, NT). Further casting is to be announced.

The 1979 play takes place during and after the Night of the Long Knives – an organised series of executions by the Nazis – and is about the persecution of gay men in Nazi Germany.

The play is part of the National Theatre's Queer Theatre event series which marks the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales.

Bent runs in the Lyttelton, National Theatre on Sunday 9 July.