A play based on documents from the Gisele Pelicot rape case will receive its UK premiere at London County Hall on November 30, according to the supplied report.
The Pelicot Rape Trial, created by Swiss director and playwright Milo Rau, will feature accounts from the trial, police files, social commentary and psychiatric reports concerning the 51 men who were prosecuted.
The one-off event will be performed by 30 actors and public figures as part of the Young Vic Theatre’s final shows of its 2026/7 season.
Dominique Pelicot, Ms Pelicot’s former husband, was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious. The abuse lasted nearly a decade.
Ms Pelicot, 73, waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and said shame should fall on her abusers, not on her.
Fifty men were found guilty of rape or sexual offences after a three-and-a-half-month trial in Avignon, France, which ended in December 2024.
Young Vic artistic director and chief executive Nadia Fall said: “Milo Rau’s extraordinary testimonial piece The Pelicot Trial breaks out beyond our theatre walls to County Hall; a piece of confronting event-theatre which bears witness to the harrowing story of Gisèle Pelicot.”
The season will also include Dissent, written and directed by Debbie Tucker Green and starring No Time To Die actress Lashana Lynch. The play, which “confronts ideas of control, complicity and power”, will run from March 5 to April 24.
What’s the F******Point?, a satire that “skewers medical bureaucracy” and “identity politics”, will play at The Maria Theatre from April 2 to 24.
Eulogy, described as a “surreal” journey, will be performed in darkness inside a shipping container outside the Young Vic from March 24 to April 24.
A reimagining of Franz Kafka’s short story A Hunger Artist, starring former Royal Ballet principal Edward Watson and performance artist Meow Meow, will run at The Maria Theatre from June 9 to 26.
Tickets for the shows go on general sale on October 7.
