Curious Incident welcomes new cast with starry gala

Fresh from its Tony-winning success on Broadway, the National Theatre's acclaimed production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time welcomed a new cast to the West End production last night.

The show, which recently extended booking at the Gielgud Theatre until 13 February 2016, is now led by Welsh actor Sion Daniel Young, who recently played Albert in the National's other West End production, War Horse.

Speaking to WhatsOnStage following the performance, Young said: "The level of skill and movement required in Curious is the equal of War Horse – I'm really fortunate to be a part of two such fun pieces of theatre".

Like his predecessors in the role, Young did extensive research into autism and asperger's in order to play Christopher, the teenage hero of Curious Incident.

The play, which is adapted from Mark Haddon's novel by Simon Stephens, has got "a little bit of everything," he added.

The show's director Marianne Elliott, who recently won a Tony Award for Best Director, one of the show's five wins, was in attendance last night.

"We didn't think we had a cat in hell's chance," she said of the Tony win. "We knew it had a big audience here, so we thought we'd try it on Broadway, but we really didn't know if the Americans would take to this story of a boy from Swindon."

The new cast also includes Rebecca Lacey as Siobhan and Mary Stockley as Judy, alongside Sean Mckenzie (Reverend Peters), Indra Ove (Mrs Shears), Stephen Beckett (Roger Shears), Jacqueline Clarke (Mrs Alexander), Matthew Trevannion (Mr Thompson) and Pearl Mackie (No 40/Punk Girl).

The only returnee is Nicolas Tennant, as Christopher's father Ed, who was full of praise for his new co-star: "[Sion] can do anything – he can look really hard, or he can be deeply thoughtful, and then when he smiles it's like a little present. To have all of that in a six-foot frame is quite extraordinary."

Guests at the Gielgud last night included Mark Ronson, Andy Serkis, Christian Jessen, Kimberly Wyatt and Daniel Mays.

As well as its West End and Broadway runs, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is also currently on tour around the UK