Cast Set for GHOSTS at Shakespeare's Globe

Shakespeare’s Globe has announced the cast of Ghosts, the opening show of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse 10th Anniversary Season. Adapted and directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins (The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, Almeida and Edward II, National), this marks the first time that Ibsen has been performed at Shakespeare’s Globe. The cast of Ghosts comprises Greg Hicks, Paul Hilton, Hattie Morahan, Sarah Slimani and Stuart Thompson.

Director Joe Hill-Gibbins says: “It's a privilege to be staging Ibsen at Shakespeare's Globe for the very first time, and also to be opening the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse’s 10th Anniversary Season. I’m excited to light the candles and see what emerges from Ibsen’s exploration of forbidden desire, and of the social, biological and emotional forces that entrap us.”

Cast biographies

Greg Hicks will play Engstrand. Previous theatre credits include Oklahoma! (Young Vic/West End); Dinner With Groucho (Civic Theatre Dublin/Belfast International Theatre); The Oresteia (NT); The Open House (Bath/Print Room); Richard III, The Kreutzer Sonata, Clarion (Arcola); Play Strindberg (Ustinov Studio); All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, Little Eagles, Anthony & Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, A Winter’s Tale; King Lear (RSC); Angels in America (Headlong); Venice Preserved (Citizens); Coriolanus (Old Vic – Critics Circle Award and Olivier Award nominated for Best Actor). Screen credits include Domina; Citizen Charlie; Burton & Taylor; The Bible; Midsomer Murders; The Mercy; Snow White & the Huntsman. 

Paul Hilton will play Father Manders. Previous work for Shakespeare’s Globe includes Dr Faustus, As You Like It and A Mad World My Masters. Other theatre credits include Othello, Mosquitoes and Peter Pan (National Theatre); The Glass Menagerie (Duke of York’s); The Inheritance (Young Vic, Noel Coward Theatre and Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York – Tony-nominated); Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court). Screen credits include Sweet Sue (BBC Films/BFI); Slow Horses (Apple TV+); Earwig (BFI/Film4); A Very English Scandal (Blueprint Pictures/BBC); The Crown (Netflix); Grantchester (ITV1); Eternal Beauty (Vox Pictures); Lady Macbeth (Sixty Six Pictures); London Road (Cuba/National Theatre); Wuthering Heights (Ecosse Films) and Edge (Cannon & Morley Productions).

Hattie Morahan will play Helene Alving. Previous work for Shakespeare’s Globe includes The Changeling. Other theatre credits include A Doll’s House (Young Vic, West End and Brooklyn Academy of Music – winner Evening Standard Theatre Award and Critics Circle Best Actress Award);  Orpheus Descending (Menier Chocolate Factory); Anatomy Of A Suicide, The City (Royal Court); The Dark Earth And The Light Sky (Almeida); Plenty (Sheffield Crucible); The Real Thing (Old Vic); Time And The Conways, Some Trace Of Her, The Seagull, Iphigenia At Aulis, Power (National Theatre); Family Reunion (Donmar Warehouse); Night Of The Soul, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Hamlet, Love In A Wood (RSC). Screen credits include Sex Education, Hijack, The Undeclared War, The Sleepers, Inside No.9, Outnumbered, The Outcast, My Mother And Other Strangers, Ballot Monkeys, Arthur And George, Eternal Law, The Bletchley Circle And Sense And Sensibility, Black Dog, Luther: The Fallen Sun, Operation Mincemeat, Enola Holmes, Official Secrets, Beauty And The Beast, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Mr Holmes and The Golden Compass. Hattie will also be appearing in the upcoming adaptation of Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once for Netflix.

Sarah Slimani will play Regine Engstrand. Sarah is a 2022 graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Previous work for Shakespeare’s Globe includes The Winter’s Tale and Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights. Other theatre credits include Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors (National Theatre); and Yeast Nation (Southwark Playhouse). Theatre while training includes Urinetown: The Musical; Emilia; Twelfth Night; The Glass Menagerie; The Seagull.

Stuart Thompson will play Osvald Alving. Theatre includes A Taste of Honey (National Theatre); Did I Wake You? (Young Vic); Living Newspaper (Royal Court); Spring Awakening (Almeida); The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre). Screen credits include Unprecedented: Viral, Starstruck, SAS: Rogue Heroes (BBC); The Witcher (Netflix); The Bower, Burnings (BFI).

Ghosts was cast by Becky Paris, Head of Casting at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Creative team

Adaptor & Director – Joe Hill-Gibbins

Associate Director – Lucy Wray

Costume and Set Designer – Rosanna Vize

Costume Supervisor – Megan Rarity                     

Globe Associate – Movement – Glynn MacDonald

Head of Voice – Tess Dignan

Intimacy Director – Haruka Kuroda