Daniel Winder

Iris Theatre, the resident theatre company of the Actors' Church in Covent Garden, today announces the appointment of Paul-Ryan Carberry as Artistic Director and Paul Virides as Executive Director. They take up their roles from the company's founder Daniel Winder, who has moved on to become venue director of Stanley Halls, after 12 years with the company.

As Iris Theatre's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the final promenade show in their annual summer season, opens this week in the grounds of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, Artistic Director Daniel Winder has announced that he is to leave the company he founded and has run for the past 12 years.

London's Free Open Air Theatre Season will return to The Scoop at London Bridge City for a 16th year with the world premiere of The Sea Queen, a one-hour family show about the Irish pirate Grainne O'Malley, and Shakespeare's popular romantic comedy Twelfth Night.

The grounds of St Paul's Church in Covent Garden are hosting a revolutionary staging of Hamlet. Directed by Daniel Winder, it sees non-binary transgender actor Jenet Le Lacheur taking on the main role. We caught up with them to learn more about how gender plays a big part in the production, which interpretation of the tragic hero is their favourite, and if there's any pressure in being Hamlet.

Iris Theatre's summer season at St Paul's Church kicks off with an innovative Hamlet in which not all the bells and whistles work, but which boasts a fine central performance from Jenet Le Lacheur.

Get a first look at Iris Theatre's HAMLET, running 19 June - 27 July in the grounds of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, with non-binary transgender actor, Jenet Le Lacheur, in the title role.

For the past ten years Iris Theatre has been producing outdoor promenade performance of Shakespeare in the beautiful grounds of St Paul's Church in the heart of Covent Garden. In this secret haven of tranquility, set amongst the busy streets of central London, they reimagine classics in new and exciting ways. This year they are presenting Hamlet with a non-binary transgender actor, Jenet Le Lacheur, in the title role. Central to this contemporary production will be an exploration of identity, gender and meaning.

In the stunning amphitheatre on the banks of the River Thames, London's Free Open Air Theatre Season will return for a 16th year with the world premiere of 'The Sea Queen', a family show about the Irish pirate Grainne O'Malley, and Shakespeare's popular romantic comedy 'Twelfth Night'.

This autumn, Izzy Jones (If Room Enough and The Duck Pond, withWings Theatre Company; Le Bossu, Wilton's Music Hall), Maya Britto (This Is The Hour, Royal Academy of Music; Is There Life After High School?, Royal Academy of Music Musical Theatre Company; A West End Christmas, Make A Difference Trust Concert - all whilst training), Ikky Elyas (Stay Happy Keep Smiling, Paines Plough; Red Pitch, Lyric Hammersmith; Our Big Love Story, Rose Theatre), Sharon Singh (The Game of Love and Chai, Tara Arts; Death of Kings and The Misanthrope, Conservatoire National Superieur D'art Dramatique; Cyrano, Northern Broadsides), Hemi Yeroham (Alice's Adventures Underground, Waterloo Vaults; Romeo and Juliet, US Tour and Off Broadway; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, US Tour and Off Broadway) and Pravessh Rana (Sann Pachattar, AAP Motion Pictures; Twelfth Night and The White Guard - whilst training) will transform Hoxton Hall into the ancient world of the Middle East in Iris Theatre's enchanting new adaptation of Arabian Nights.

Iris Theatre's The Tempest at St Paul's Church is an outdoor promenade production of one of Shakespeare's great comedies, though it is fairly traditional in every other way. The audience follows the actors around four different locations during the course of the show: three outdoor and one within St Paul's Church. However, despite this staging, the production feels a bit too predictable and even plain.

This August, Jenny Horsthuis (Swift in Word, Corbett Theatre; Macbeth, St. Paul's Church; Inside Pussy Riot, Saatchi Gallery) will return to St. Paul's Church to star as the brave hero d'Artagnan in Iris Theatre's thrilling re-gendered The Three Musketeers. Also returning to St. Paul's is Matt Stubbs (A Serious Business, Pleasance Theatre/The Hat Factory; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stafford Castle; Macbeth, St. Paul's Church) who will be playing Athos - one of the formidable musketeers. Completing the infamous trio are Albert De Jongh (The White Princess, Starz Network; As You Like It, Petersfield Shakespeare Festival; King John, Union Theatre) and Elliot Liburd (Bismillah: An ISIS Tragicomedy, Pleasance Theatre; The Girl With The Iron Claws, Dartington; Titus Andronicus, Fourth Monkey Theatre Company) who will be playing Aramis and Porthos respectively. They are joined by Ailsa Joy (Bad Jews, Theatre Royal Haymarket and UK Tour; Two Gentlemen of Verona, Guildford Shakespeare Company; TimePlays, Hampton Court Palace) as Milady and Bethan Rose Young (The Great Gatsby, Theatr Clwyd; Cosy, Millennium Centre Wales; Dead Born Grow, Frantic Assembly) as Constance. Stephan Boyce (Dangling, Southwark Playhouse; Thirst, The Space; Romeo & Juliet Unzipped, Salisbury Playhouse) who plays Treville, the moral leader of the Musketeers, will round off this stellar cast.

Paul Brendan (Faithful Ruslan - The Story of a Guard Dog, Belgrade Theatre and Citizen's Theatre; Julius Caesar, The Tobacco Factory; Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's Globe), Charlotte Christensen (Gate; Cockpit Theatre; The Little Match Girl, Tabard Theatre; The Divide, Old Vic Theatre), Reginald Edwards (A Peril of the Sea, Lakeside Theatre; You're Human Like the Rest of Them, Finborough Theatre; King Lear, Royal & Derngate), Linford Johnson (Pinocchio, National Theatre; Show Boat, Sheffield Crucible and New London Theatre; Macbeth, St. Paul's Church), Prince Plockey (H.R.Haitch, Union Theatre; You Forgot The Mince, Edinburgh Fringe and UK Tour; The Life and Death of Martin Luther King, European Tour), Jamie Newall (Another Country, Queen's Theatre; The Woman In Black, Fortune Theatre; RSC's Richard III, Australian Tour) and Joanne Thomson (In Plain Sight, ITV; The Whip Hand, Traverse Theatre and Birmingham Rep; The Suffragettes: How Women Got The Vote; BBC) will star in Iris Theatre's The Tempest which opens their enchanting outdoor season.

autumn, Iris Theatre will transform Hoxton Hall into a magical world where stories of Ali Baba, Ala'ad-Din and Sinbad the Sailor unfold in their new adaptation of Arabian Nights. Adapted by Nessah Muthy (Heroine, The Host) and directed by Daniel Winder (Iris Theatre), this celebration of the cultural history of Islam and the wider ancient world promises to be a spectacular evening of storytelling.

Christian James (The Commitments, UK Tour; NewsRevue, Canal Cafe Theatre; Princess Caraboo, Finborough Theatre), Emily Jane Kerr (Tomorrow, Maybe, Union Theatre; What Is Love?, Southwark Playhouse; NewsRevue, Canal Cafe Theatre), Andrea Miller (Billy Elliot, UK and Ireland Tour; Pass The Porter, The Spa Bridlington; Fables and Fairytales, The Spa Bridlington), Christopher Lyne (Romeo and Juliet, Wilde Theatre; Robin Hood The Pantomime, Peepul Centre; The Hired Man, Union Theatre) and Prince Plockey (Future Voices, Southwark Playhouse; You Forgot The Mince, Edinburgh Fringe 2017 and UK Tour; Tis Pity She's A Whore, Tristan Bates Theatre) will join Tori Allen-Martin in H.R.Haitch - a hilarious and charming new musical for princesses and paupers alike.

Following a highly successful concert version as part of Iris Theatre's Workin Process scheme, H.R.Haitch opens at the Union Theatre as a freshly re-imagined full-length production. Featuring original music composed by Luke Bateman (Mr. Poppers Penguins) and lyrics written by children's author and Carnegie Medal recipient Maz Evans, H.R.Haitch is a hilarious and charming new musical for princesses and paupers alike.

Award-winning Iris Theatre's summer season will present a unique theatrical promenade experience in the middle of Covent Garden. Shakespeare's The Tempest opens this year's enchanting outdoor season followed by Daniel Winder's adaptation of The Three Musketeers - suitable for all the family.

Following a target-smashing Kickstarter campaign this October, Iris Theatre's Xmas Factor All Stars album drops this Friday, just in time for the festive season.

Director, Amy Draper, packs plenty into realising writer Daniel Winder's ambitious take on the Grimm fairytale, but the show needs to be edited back to two hours maximum running time to succeed fully.

Production photos have been released for Iris Theatre's annual family show, 'Hansel & Gretel and the Witch Baba Yaga', which completes their10-year anniversary summer season of open-air promenade shows in the heart of Covent Garden.

Iris Theatre's 10th-anniversary immersive production of Macbeth stars David Hywel Baynes, who has returned from the US following his Best Actor Offie Award-nominated tour-de-force as King Richard in Richard III, also for Iris Theatre.