Plays cast: Spooks‘ Raison in Donmar Physicists, Gate Tenet

Raison, best know to audiences for her five-year stint as Jo Portman in the BBC TV series Spooks, appeared at Shakespeare’s Globe portraying Anne Boleyn in Howard Brenton‘s Whatsonstage.com Award-winning play of the same name and Henry VIII in 2010.

Raisin plays two roles in The Physicists, the wife of German astronomer Johann Mobius, played by John Heffernan, and nurse Monika who is in love with him.

Heffernan can currently be seen in the National Theatre’s production alongside She Stoops To Conquer and will be joined in the cast by Paul Bhattacharjee as Albert Einstein, Justin Salinger as Isaac Newton, Joanna Brookes as Nurse Boll, John Ramm as Inspector Voss and Sophie Thompson as Dr Mathilde von Zahnd.

The cold war satire will be directed by Josie Rourke with design by Rob Jones, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound by Emma Laxton and music by Michael Bruce.

Durrenmatt’s satirical drama, which will be presented in a new version by Jack Thorne, completes Josie Rourke‘s first season as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse.

Written in the shadow of the atom bomb and at a time of unprecedented scientific advance, The Physicists considers if insanity is the only refuge for the dangerously intelligent.

Full casting has also today been announced for the Gate Theatre’s production of Tenet, part of Christopher Haydon‘s first season in charge of the venue, which will run from 2 to 26 May (previews from 1 May) in a co-production with Greyscale.

Tenet: A True Story About the Revolutionary Politics of Telling the Truth About Truth is directed by Greyscale’s co-artistic director Lorne Campbell and will star Lucy Ellinson as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Jon Foster as 19th Century mathematician Evariste Galois.

Meet Evariste: he’s a brilliant mathematician and a very angry young man. Meet Julian: he makes people very cross, he’s here to help. If Evariste can keep it together and Julian can keep out of the way then the two of them might be able to explain everything from polynomial equations (easy) to how to change the world (a bit harder) before someone dies at dawn.

Ellinson’s theatre credits include A Thousand Shards of Glass (Jane Packman Company), Alice in Wonderland, Down the Rabbit Hole (Roya & Derngate, Northampton), Oh the humanity (and other good intentions) for Northern Stage, Who You Are (Tate Modern), Consequences (Forest Fringe, BAC, The Place), 3rd Ring Out, Two Perspectives for Metis Arts (UK tour, Divided Skies Festival, Soho Theatre), They Only Come at Night, Helium for Slunglow Theatre (Barbican) and Monsters (Arcola Theatre).

She was also nominated for The Stage’s Best Solo Performance Award for Land Without Words at the Edinburgh Festival and on international tour.

Jon Foster returns to the Gate where he previously appeared in Dream Story and Mud. His other theatre work includes Invisible (European tour), How To Tell the Monsters From the Misfits (Birmingham Rep) and, for the RSC, Little Eagles, A New Way to Please You, Speaking Like Magpies, Sejanus His Fall and Thomas More.

On television, his credits include Come Rain or Come Shine, Law and Order UK, The IT Crowd and Clone. His film credits include Expectation Management, Nice Guy, Love’s Kitchen and Abroad.