RSC completes cast for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced full casting for its 2026 production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, with Mark Gatiss playing the title role.

The play, adapted by Stephen Sharkey, is set in Chicago and follows the rise of a criminal figure, serving as a political satire on Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. This production marks the first time the Royal Shakespeare Company has staged the play.

Gatiss plays Arturo Ui, while BAFTA winner Mawaan Rizwan makes his RSC debut as Giri and Kadiff Kirwan also makes his debut with the company as Roma. Janie Dee returns to the RSC as Betty Dullfeet, alongside Christopher Godwin as Dogsborough and LJ Parkinson as Givola.

They are joined in the cast by Joe Alessi, Valerie Antwi, Mark Hammersley, Rebekah Hinds, Cameron Johnson, Samuel Nunes de Souza, Mahesh Parmar, Santino Smith and Amanda Wilkin.

The production is directed by Seán Linnen, while the creative team includes set and costume designer Georgia Lowe, lighting designer Robbie Butler, music by Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal of Placebo, sound designer Johnny Edwards, movement director Jennifer Jackson, fight director Haruka Kuroda, casting director Christopher Worrall, music director Richie Hart, voice and text coach Charmian Hoare, costume supervisor Harry Whitham and assistant director Mandeep Glover.

The production runs at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from 11 April to 30 May, with press night on 21 April.

Linnen said: “To make my RSC directorial debut with The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is an honour and a galvanising responsibility. Brecht’s play is a howl from history begging us to do things differently and reminding us that tyranny doesn’t arrive fully formed; it creeps in through charm, complicity and silence.

“What’s thrilling about bringing this production to the Swan is the chance to stage it, not as a history lesson, but as a living, breathing provocation to the world we are living in. With Stephen Sharkey’s razor-sharp version, Placebo’s darkly seductive score and this extraordinary company led by Mark Gatiss, we’re leaning into the play’s ferocious wit and theatricality, its music, its mischief, and its danger.

“As the threat from the far-right grows daily at home and abroad, it is our job as artists to speak up and out. There is no other play that interrogates the global political moment we are living through more than this one, and I’m so lucky to have such fearless and formidable collaborators to bring this production to life.”