David Tennant to play Macbeth in Donmar Warehouse season, which reunites Lynn Nottage and Lynette Linton

David Tennant (Good, Good Omens, Doctor Who) will star in a new staging of Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse this winter.

The central London venue’s season is also set feature the European premiere of Clyde’s, Lynn Nottage’s follow-up to her Pulitzer-winning piece Sweat. The play is set in a Pennsylvania truck stop, where the formerly incarcerated staff aspire to create the perfect sandwich.

Running from 13 October to 2 December, Nottage’s play will be directed by Lynette Linton (who also directed Sweat at the venue in 2018), while the creative team also includes designer Frankie Bradshaw, lighting designer Oliver Fenwick, sound designer George Dennis, movement director Kane Husbands and composer Duramaney Kamara.

The venue’s associate director Max Webster (Life of Pi, Henry V) will then direct Tennant in the Scottish Play, with further casting for the show to be revealed in due course.

Playing from 8 December to 10 February 2024, the show has sound design by Gareth Fry and movement direction by Shelley Maxwell. The production marks Tennant’s first time at the Donmar since he appeared in Lobby Hero over 20 years ago.

The venue will also tour a production of Henry V, inspired by Webster’s staging of the show seen last year, to schools for four weeks in June and July, with performances offered free of charge reaching up to 3000 young people in Camden and Westminster.

Artistic director Michael Longhurst said today: “For my penultimate season announcement I am thrilled to share two more productions to round off our 30th birthday year. First, we have the European première of Lynn Nottage’s hilarious and uplifting Clyde’s directed by Lynette Linton, fresh from her Critics’ Circle Best Director win. Clyde’s follows their astonishing production of Sweat staged at the Donmar, and the West End, in 2018 and 2019. And I am so excited to witness David Tennant’s portrayal of Macbeth, in what will be an unmissable production directed by Max Webster.

“We are also proud to share an adapted version of our last Shakespeare production Henry V with young people in Camden and Westminster in our next Schools’ tour, created by artists from our training programme. With the continued cuts to schools’ arts provision, touring productions like this are essential, to help nurture the next generation of audiences and theatre makers. Finally I am delighted to have Mufaro Makubiko and Hannah Shury-Smith under commission, thanks to our Theatre Royal Haymarket Writers Award.”

Longhurst’s final season of shows before he steps down as artistic director next year will be announced in the autumn.