West End stars cast in Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler from BAFTA award-winning writers
The cast has been announced for the world premiere of Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler, a new dark comedy from BAFTA award-winning writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Birds of a Feather, BBC 1; Dreamboats and Petticoats, West End; The New Statesman, ITV). This groundbreaking and eerily plausible play reimagines a history in which Adolf Hitler visited Sigmund Freud for psychiatric treatment.
This premiere will star Jonathan Tafler (The Merchant of Venice, The Almeida / RSC; The Crucible, UK Tour; The Mousetrap, St Martins Theatre) as Sigmund Freud and Sam Mac (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Balladeer Stageworks; Tom Brown’s School Days, The Union; Death On The Nile, Fox UK) as a young Adolf Hitler. They will appear alongside Nesba Crenshaw (The Years, The Almeida; Lyonesse, Harold Pinter; 4000 Miles, The Old Vic) as Martha Freud, Ruby Ablett (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Birmingham Rep; Ocean at the End of the Lane, National Theatre / West End; Aladdin, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmonds) as Anna Freud, Brendan Lyle (Exit Pursued by a Bear, The Globe; A Christmas Carol, Chichester Festival Theatre; Birthcloud, Monaco Film Festival) as Otto Rank, with Neil Chinneck (I Was Honey Boo Boo, Lifetime; Call The Midwife, BBC; King Baby, Kit Redstone & Arran Shearing) as Carl Jung.
Written by the award-winning Birds of a Feather and Goodnight Sweetheart, a 60-minute version of Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler was originally broadcast in 2007 on BBC Radio 4’s The Saturday Play. For its world premiere, the play will be staged by the experienced team from Chromolume (Road Show; In Clay Tom Lehrer Is Teaching Math And Doesn’t Want To Talk To You; You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown), including direction from Upstairs at the Gatehouse’s Artistic Director Isaac Bernier-Doyle (Road Show, Upstairs at the Gatehouse; Blood Gold and Oil, Upstairs at the Gatehouse/ Riverside Studios; You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Upstairs at the Gatehouse /China Tour; Tom Lehrer Is Teaching Math And Doesn't Want To Talk To You, Upstairs at the Gatehouse).
This compelling theatrical retelling offers a new perspective on two profoundly influential figures of the 20th century who never met but could have.
Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler is a deeply researched piece, with strong connections to the Freud Museum in Hampstead – the location where the Freud family lived after escaping Vienna. The show moves from biting dry humour to creeping dread, leaving the audience to consider what therapy can and cannot achieve in the face of monstrous potential. This incredible cast will look to explore whether the 20th century's greatest psychoanalyst could have saved humanity from the era’s greatest psychopath.
Writer Laurence Marks comments, We are both overjoyed to be giving the world premiere of our play at Upstairs at the Gatehouse Theatre, just five miles from where we were both brought up, and just a few miles from where Sigmund Freud spent the final year of his life. Our challenging play will test our actors as much as the writing of it challenged us. But shouldn't all theatre be a challenge?