Sophie Okonedo and Ben Daniels to star in MEDEA @sohoplace

Fictionhouse Limited, Nica Burns and Kate Pakenham Productions today (19 October) announce Medea, adapted by Robinson Jeffers from the play by Euripides. Dominic Cooke directs with Sophie Okonedo as Medea and Ben Daniels as Jason/Creon/Aegeus, with full cast to be announced.

The production opens at @sohoplace on 17 February, with previews from 11 February, and runs until 22 April 2023. Further casting to be announced.

Medea sees Dominic Cooke reuniting with long-term collaborators' Sophie Okonedo and Ben Daniels, most recently with BBC's The Hollow Crown - Wars of the Roses, in addition to working together across multiple stage productions since the 1990s.

What could turn a woman from a lover into a destroyer of love?

Medea tells the story of a woman laid bare by grief and rage, and her terrible quest for revenge against the men who have abandoned her.

Sophie Okonedo brings her visceral, mercurial brilliance to literature's most titanic female protagonist, whose complexity and contradictions have kept audiences on the edge of their seats, unable to look away, for almost 2,500 years.

Sophie Okonedo said, "I am really excited and a touch nervous to be playing Medea. I'm buoyed by the fact I'm working with two of my closest friends and long-term collaborators, Dominic Cooke and Ben Daniels. I was lucky enough to have Nica Burns show me around the new @sohoplace theatre while it was still being built, and I was so impressed by the space that I signed up immediately to perform there!"

Dominic Cooke also commented, "I have been friends with Sophie Okonedo since we were in our teens. We've worked together many times including on Arabian Nights at the Young Vic in 1998 and The Hollow Crown: Wars of the Roses for the BBC in 2015. Sophie is one of our most visceral, emotionally connected actors and I have long thought she'd be a brilliant Medea. I am over the moon that it's now happening as the second West End production for Fictionhouse, run by Kate Horton and myself. I'm also really looking forward to working again with the super talented Ben Daniels after our hugely fulfilling collaboration on The Normal Heart at The National Theatre. Ben and Sophie have been an explosive onstage partnership in the past and I can't wait to see them playing these iconic roles together in Nica Burns' thrilling new auditorium @sohoplace."