Cush Jumbo to join David Tennant in Macbeth at London’s Donmar Warehouse

The actor, who has previously starred as Hamlet at the Young Vic, is to play Lady Macbeth among a wave of star-powered Shakespeare productions this year

Cush Jumbo is to play Lady Macbeth this winter in a production at London’s Donmar Warehouse that reunites her with David Tennant, her co-star in the Channel 4 TV series Deadwater Fell.

Earlier this month it was announced that Tennant would take on the title role in Max Webster’s production of Macbeth, expected to be one of this year’s hottest tickets. Jumbo’s casting marks her return to the Covent Garden theatre where she played Mark Antony in an acclaimed all-female production of Julius Caesar in 2012, directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

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David Tennant to play Macbeth at Donmar Warehouse

The actor will take to the stage as the Scottish king in December, in the last production of the London theatre’s 30th-anniversary season

Hot on the heels of the news that Ralph Fiennes will play Macbeth in a tour of repurposed UK warehouses comes the announcement that David Tennant will also star as the Scottish king at London’s Donmar Warehouse.

It is the Scottish actor’s first Shakespearean stage role since he played Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company, on and off, from 2013 to 2016. In 2022 he was Macbeth in a two-part BBC Radio 4 broadcast. The Donmar production will be directed by Max Webster and will conclude the 30th-anniversary season for the London theatre, which was previously home to a banana-ripening warehouse.

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‘An explosive energy’: Sam Mendes pays tribute to Helen McCrory

Whether acting in Chekhov on stage or a Bond film, the star – who has died aged 52 – was incredibly exciting to watch, remembers the Skyfall director

Most actors are liked by those they work with. A few are loved. With Helen it was unquestionably the latter. People would light up at the mention of her name. I was one of those people.

When I was directing Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night as my final productions as artistic director of the Donmar in 2002, I asked Helen to play the role of Sonya in Uncle Vanya. Word came back that she would love to have a chat about it. She strode into my office, sat on the sofa and immediately told me I had it all wrong. She told me she should be playing Yelena – the other young female role – and then proceeded to spend the next hour telling me exactly why. She left the room with the part. This has never happened to me before or since. All I can say by way of explanation is that it just felt inevitable. She was clearly already half way to giving a superb performance, I simply had to get out of the way and let her complete the job. Which, of course, she did – with utter brilliance.

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