The Sri Lankan actor, who had wowed audiences in Sheffield in Life of Pi, was poised for West End fame when theatres shut up shop. He reflects on a career interrupted

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“I was scared that I might not be able to do Pi again,” says Hiran Abeysekera, who was preparing to transfer his rapturously received 2019 performance in Life of Pi to the West End when the pandemic hit. “We were joking that when theatres finally reopened, I’d have grey hair and a walking stick. People would go: ‘Hiran, do you still want to do Pi?’ And I’d be like: ‘I can’t do it any more, man, I’m too old!’”

Abeysekera, who is a very youthful and ebullient 35, graduated from Rada in 2011. His credits include The Taming of the Shrew at the RSC and Peter Pan at Regent’s Park, and he played Puck in a spirited BBC adaptation, by Russell T Davies, of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2016. But Life of Pi in the West End was an obvious breakthrough moment. Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaptation of the Booker prize-winning novel by Yann Martel received five-star reviews when it opened at the Sheffield Crucible, and Abeysekera’s performance as Piscine “Pi” Patel – shipwrecked with various zoo animals, including a ravenous tiger – was hailed as star-making. The Guardian called it “superb”, noting that “the actor has the charm, wit and seriousness to make him a compelling narrator of his own magical-realist tale”. Our own reviewer described Abeysekera’s performance as “unbelievably credible”.