Jodie Whittaker, Benedict Wong, Nick Mohammed and more to perform in ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) as part of LIFT festival 2024

The Royal Court and LIFT (London’s International Festival of Theatre) have revealed further names who have signed on to appear in the world premiere of ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) this month.

Running from 13 to 27 July (with a press night on 17 July), Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour (White Rabbit Red Rabbit, NASSIM) and Italian Palestinian director Omar Elerian’s (NASSIM, Misty, two Palestinians go dogging) production will see a new, unrehearsed and unprepared performer take to the stage at each show. They will simply be led by a script that asks us to confront what it feels like to be an immigrant in time.

Previously announced participants taking to the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs stage are Kathryn Hunter (Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead), Toby Jones (Mr Bates vs The Post Office), Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve), Meera Syal (Roar) and Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem (Cabaret).

Newly revealed names include Sheila Atim (Constellations), Monica Dolan (The Change), Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer), Jeremy O Harris (Slave Play), Adrian Lester (Renegade Nell), Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso), Mawaan Rizwan (Juice), Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who) and Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange).

One final special guest artist is still to be unveiled.

Dolan commented: “I performed in Nassim Saleimanpour’s play NASSIM at the Edinburgh Festival in 2017 when I was up there performing my solo show. NASSIM was definitely one of the highlights of the festival for me. The accuracy with which I needed to listen, the communion with the audience, the discovery of the play at that same instant as everyone else in the room. At one point an audience member even helped me out and spoke my next line for me as I was unable to speak and couldn’t get it out! I hope this will be another adventure in listening and awareness and discovery, bumping into thoughts and learning in public, buoyed up by the support of all of us in the space. Hearing the story for the first time at the same time as telling it is something rarely experienced by an actor, and takes us all the way back to how Shakespeare’s actors must have experienced his plays the first time they played and heard them.”

Rizwan added: “I love the work Omar and Nassim are doing. As an actor, it’s a perfect mixture of exciting, innovative and terrifying!”

​The performance schedule is as follows:

13 July – Fiona Shaw

15 July – Benedict Wong

16 July – Sheila Atim

17 July – Adrian Lester

18 July – Jeremy O Harris

19 July – Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem

20 July (1:30pm) – Monica Dolan

20 July (7:30pm) – Emilia Clarke (UPDATE)

22 July – Meera Syal

23 July – Jodie Whittaker

24 July – Mawaan Rizwan

25 July – Jessica Gunning

26 July – Nick Mohammed

27 July (1:30pm) – Toby Jones

27 July (6:30pm) – Kathryn Hunter

Tickets are on sale below.