Frantic Assembly announces full cast for new show Lost Atoms

Frantic Assembly has given an update on its 30th anniversary year plans.

The company has confirmed that its free nationwide talent development programme Ignition will return in 2025, following a successful fundraising campaign. Established in 2008, Ignition provides opportunities for young people aged 16 to 24 from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds to explore and develop creative skills.

The company has raised £129,000 to support the programme’s return next year, with support from individual donors and organisations including the Garfield Weston Foundation and The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Foundation.

Casting has also been confirmed for Frantic Assembly’s 30th anniversary production Lost Atoms, which opens at Curve Leicester on 22 September before a UK tour. Written by Anna Jordan and directed by Scott Graham, the production will feature Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson.

Layton, a former Ignition participant, has worked with the company on Othello, Metamorphosis, and The Unreturning, and is currently appearing in Coronation Street. Sinclair Robinson has previously appeared in Metamorphosis and Othello, as well as The Play That Goes Wrong and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

The tour will visit York Theatre Royal, Liverpool Playhouse, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Mercury Theatre Colchester, the Lowry in Salford, Connaught Theatre Worthing, Mayflower Studios Southampton, Bristol Old Vic, and Lyric Hammersmith Theatre.

The creative team includes Andrzej Goulding (set), Simisola Majekodunmi (lighting), Carolyn Downing (sound), Alice McNicholas (costume), Julie Blake (music supervision) and associate director Lucy Wild. A casting director was not disclosed by the production.

Frantic Assembly will also collaborate again with Aurora Orchestra for a dramatised performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall on 16 and 17 August, which will be broadcast on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer.

Max Revell, a 2015 Ignition graduate and former BBC Young Dancer of the Year, will portray Shostakovich, with Sean Hollands, another Ignition alum, working as associate co-director alongside Scott Graham.