SARAH KANE’S ERA-DEFINING PLAY 4.48 PSYCHOSIS TO HAVE A LIMITED RUN AT THE OTHER PLACE IN SPRING 2025
- Sarah Kane’s final play returns in a new co-production with the Royal Court Theatre, re-uniting the original cast and creative team
- Final Stratford-upon-Avon performance to take place at 4.48am, with opportunity to meet the company
- RSC Co-Artistic Director Daniel Evans to reprise his role alongside co-stars Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter
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The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre today announce a new co-production of 4.48 Psychosis, which sees the original cast and creative team re-visit Sarah Kane’s final masterpiece 25 years on. Following its opening at the Royal Court Theatre the production transfers to The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon for twenty performances only from Thursday 10 – Sunday 27 July, with local press night on Tuesday 15 July.
The final performance will take place at 4.48am on the morning of Sunday 27 July 2025. The unique event will also include a post-show discussion with the cast and creative team over breakfast.
First performed at the Royal Court Jerwood Upstairs on 23 June 2000, 4.48 Psychosis plunges the audience into the mind of an unnamed protagonist grappling with severe depression. This unflinching portrait of a psyche teetering on the edge of oblivion returns to the stage in a new production directed by James Macdonald (Waiting for Godot, West End) with original cast members Daniel Evans, Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter reprising their critically acclaimed roles.
RSC Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey said:
“Sarah Kane’s final work cemented her legacy as a seminal playwright of British theatre. 25 years on from the play’s premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, this new production of 4.48 Psychosis represents a landmark moment for the RSC in 2025. To be staging this era-defining work in The Other Place, a theatre synonymous with radical new productions, is particularly thrilling. To mark this moment in time, we are also offering Stratford audiences the unique opportunity to experience the final performance of this play at 4.48am in the morning, at the break of dawn."
Daniel Evans, who was in the original cast of 4.48 Psychosis in 2000, added:
“I had the privilege of first working with Sarah Kane on Cleansed in 1998. Within two years, I was back in the rehearsal room alongside Madeleine Potter and Jo McInnes, rehearsing her final play. I think it’s safe to say we all felt the weight of responsibility. To be back in that same rehearsal room, 25 years on, re-united with Director James Macdonald and the original creative team is both a tremendous honour and a joy, knowing that new generations of audiences will have the opportunity to experience this complex, vital and astonishing play through a new lens in 2025.”
Joining James Macdonald on the creative team are Set & Costumer Designer Jeremy Herbert, Lighting Designer Nigel Edwards and Sound Designer Paul Arditti.
The production opens at the Royal Court Theatre from Thursday 12 June – Saturday 5 July with national press night on Wednesday 18 June. The co-production is one of seven titles to feature in David Byrne’s second season as Royal Court Theatre Artistic Director, which was announced earlier today. Further details of the RSC’s Spring/Summer season will be announced in January 2025.
4.48 Psychosis is generously supported by a lead gift from Charles Holloway OBE.
ENDS
For RSC media enquiries, please contact: Kate Evans (Head of Media Relations) on 07920 244 434. Email: kate.evans@rsc.org.uk
LISTINGS INFORMATION:
4.48 Psychosis
A co-production with Royal Court Theatre
By Sarah Kane
Directed by James Macdonald
Thursday 12 June – Saturday 5 July
The Royal Court Theatre, London
Press night: Wednesday 18 June
Thursday 10 – Sunday 27 July
The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon
Evening performances at 7.45pm (except local press night 7pm), Thursday and Saturday matinees at 3pm, final performance on Sunday 27 July at 4.48am.
Local Press Night: Tuesday 15 July
Chilled performance: Thursday 24 July 3.00pm
Captioned performance: Saturday 19 July 3.00pm
Audio Described performance with Touch Tour: Friday 25 July 7.45pm
Director Talk: Saturday 12 July: 5.45pm
Post Show Talk: Wednesday 23 July
“I dreamt that I went to the doctors, and she gave me eight minutes to live. I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room for half an hour”
A quarter century from its debut, the entire original cast and creative team return to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs to revisit Sarah Kane’s final masterpiece 25 years on.
4.48 Psychosis plunges the audience into the mind of an unnamed protagonist grappling with severe depression. Kane crafts an unflinching portrait of a psyche teetering on the edge of oblivion.
In a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by award-winning James Macdonald (Waiting for Godot, West End) with Daniel Evans, Joanna McInnes and Madeleine Potter reprising their roles.
BIOGS
Daniel Evans
Daniel is Co-Artistic Director of the RSC. Previously, he was Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre (2016-2023) and of Sheffield Theatres (2009-2016).
As actor, for the Royal Court: Cleansed, 4.48 Psychosis, Other People, Where Do We Live?.
As director, for the Royal Court: Black Superhero
As actor, other theatre includes: Cardiff East, Peter Pan, Candide, Troilus and Cressida, The Merchant of Venice (National); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coriolanus, Henry V, Cymbeline, Measure For Measure (Royal Shakespeare Company); Ghosts (ETT); Merrily We Roll Along (Donmar); The Tempest (Sheffield/Old Vic); Sunday in the Park with George (Menier/West End/Studio 54).
As director, theatre includes: Our Generation (& National), South Pacific (& Sadler’s Wells), Quiz (& Noel Coward), Fiddler on the Roof (CFT); American Buffalo (Wyndham’s); Othello, An Enemy of the People, The Effect, Show Boat (& New London), Macbeth, Flowers for Mrs Harris, My Fair Lady, Racing Demon, This is My Family (Sheffield Theatres); The Light in the Piazza (RFH, LA Opera & Chicago Lyric Opera); Esther (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru); Lovely Evening/In The Blue (Young Vic at Theatre 503).
Awards include: Olivier Awards for Best Actor in a Musical (Merrily We Roll Along and Sunday in the Park with George); UK Theatre Awards for Best Musical Production (Show Boat and Flowers for Mrs Harris).
James Macdonald
James was Associate Director at the Royal Court from 1992 to 2006.
For the Royal Court: What If If Only, Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp, One for Sorrow, Escaped Alone, The Children, The Wolf from the Door, Circle Mirror Transformation, Love and Information, Cock, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You, Dying City, Fewer Emergencies, Lucky Dog, Blood, Blasted, 4.48 Psychosis, Hard Fruit, Real Classy Affair, Cleansed, Bailegangaire, Harry and Me, Simpatico, Blasted, Peaches, Thyestes, Hammett’s Apprentice, The Terrible Voice of Satan, Putting Two and Two Together.
Other theatre includes: Infinite Life, The Welkin, John, Dido Queen of Carthage, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, Exiles (National); True West, The Children, Top Girls (Broadway); Escaped Alone, John Gabriel Borkman (BAM); Infinite Life, Cloud Nine (Atlantic Theater); Cock (The Duke); Love and Information, A Number (New York Theatre Workshop); King Lear, The Book of Grace, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You (Public); Dying City (Lincoln Centre Theater); 4.48 Psychosis (St Anne’s Warehouse); Waiting for Godot, Night of the Iguana, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Father, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Changing Room (West End); Boys on the Verge of Tears (Soho); The Cherry Orchard (Yard/ETT); Dolls House Part Two, The Way of the World, Roots (Donmar); Bakkhai, A Delicate Balance, Judgement Day, The Triumph of Love (Almeida); The Chinese Room (Williamstown Theater Festival); Wild, And No More Shall We Part, #aiww - The Arrest of Ai Weiwei (Hampstead); The Father (Bath/The Tricycle); John Gabriel Borkman (Abbey, Dublin); The Tempest, Roberto Zucco (RSC); Troilus and Cressida, Die Kopien (Schaubühne, Berlin); 4.48 Psychose (Burgtheater, Vienna); Love’s Labour’s Lost and Richard II (Royal Exchange).
Opera includes: A Ring A Lamp A Thing (Linbury Studio); Eugene Onegin, Rigoletto (Welsh National Opera); Die Zauberflöte (Garsington); Wolf Club Village, Night Banquet (Almeida); Lives of the Great Poisoners (Second Stride).
Film includes: A Number.
Jo McInnes
For the Royal Court: [as actor:] 4.48 Psychosis (&US Tour/St Anne’s Warehouse, New York); Bluebird; [as director:] RED BUD; Vera, Vera, Vera.
As actor, theatre includes: Coram Boy (Chichester Festival); Romeo and Juliet (Almeida); Medea (West End); The Corn is Green, The House of Bernada Alba, The Children's Hour (National); The Jungle (Young Vic/West End/St Ann's Warehouse); M.A.D (Bush); On Blindness (&Paines Plough), Dirty Butterfly (Soho); Inland Sea (Oxford Stage Company); Edward II (Sheffield Crucible); Biloxi Blues; Importance of Being Earnest; Memoirs of a Survivor (Salisbury Playhouse); Uncle Vanya (&Young Vic), The Herbal Bed, The General From America, As You Like It (Royal Shakespeare Company).
As actor, television includes: This England, Afterlife, Recovery, The World of Impressionists, Spooks, The Playground, Playing the Field and Casualty.
As actor, film includes: Me and Orson Welles, The New Romantics, My Wife is an Actress, Birthday Girl, Gangster No. 1 and The Verdict.
As director, theatre includes: The Legends of Them (Brixton House); For All The Women Who Thought They Were Mad (Hackney Showroom); Valhalla (Theatre 503); 36 Phone Calls (Hampstead); Can Hear You & This Is Not An Exit ( RSC); Running on Empty (Probe/Soho) and Christmas (Bush/Tape NVT, Brighton)
As director, film includes: Pornography ‘Coming Up’ Channel 4.
Awards include: BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Original Single Drama (Sealonging).
Madeleine Potter
For the Royal Court: 4:48 Psychosis, The Kid Stays in the Picture.
Theatre in the UK includes: The Sound Inside (Traverse); Electra, Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, The Internationalist (Gate Theatre); All My Sons, Southwark Fair (National); True West, After Mrs Rochester, Madame Melville, An Ideal Husband (West End); Tejas Verdes (Edinburgh International Festival), Broken Glass (Tricycle), The Waters Edge (Arcola), Mother of Him (Courtyard), The Maiden’s Prayer (Bush).
Theatre in the US includes: Hamlet (Shakespeare Theatre Company); The Glass Menagerie (Fords); An Ideal Husband, The Crucible, The Master Builder, A Little Hotel on the Side, Metamorphosis, Coastal Disturbances, Slab Boys, Plenty (Broadway); Pygmalion (Roundabout); As You Like It (Williamstown); Playboy of the Western World, Philadelphia Here I Come (Irish Rep); Hedda Gabler (Portland Stage); Richard III (NYSF); The Plough and the Stars (Olympia, Dublin/US tour); Abingdon Square, Lydie Breeze (American Place Theatre).
Television includes: Unforgotten, Cobra, Mr Selfridge, Foyle’s War, Houdini, Holby City, Dark Matters, Midsomer Murders, The Girl in the Café, Caught in the Act, State of Play, The Whistleblower, Crime Story, The Equalizer and Svengali.
Film includes: Red Lights, Chosyu 5, Love and Roadkill, The White Countess, Muffin, The Golden Bowl, Two Evil Eyes, Slaves of New York, Bloodhounds of Broadway, The Suicide Club, Hello Again and The Bostonians.
NOTES TO EDITORS
The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
The RSC is generously supported by RSC America
The RSC Acting Companies are generously supported by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation
About the Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s mission is to bring people together to experience stories that deepen our understanding of ourselves, each other and the world around us, and that bring joy. Shakespeare’s restless exploration of all of human nature is our inspiration and touchstone.
The Company’s roots lie in the bold vision of a local brewer, Edward Fordham Flower, who in 1879 established a theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon with his son Charles. The RSC as we know it today was formed by Sir Peter Hall, whose ambition was to produce new plays alongside those of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We continue this today across our three permanent theatres in Stratford – the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Swan Theatre and The Other Place – and indeed online and around the globe. We believe everybody’s life can be enriched by culture and creativity. Our transformative Creative Learning and Engagement programmes reach over half a million young people and adults each year. We have collaborated with generations of the very best theatre makers and we continue to nurture the talent of the future.
About Arts Council England
Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where every one of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. From 2023 to 2026 we will invest over £467 million of public money from Government and an estimated £250 million from The National Lottery each year to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. This year the National Lottery will celebrate 30 years of supporting good causes
