'Time turns, sets a backward course, starts for the start with speed: the fragile moments drop unravelling, reversing, unwound, back to the beginning.'

Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change.

Award-winning writer and director Robert Icke transforms Sophocles' epic tragedy into an essential and explosive political thriller.

First performed in Dutch in 2018 at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam and the Edinburgh International Festival, this arresting version of Oedipus received its English-language premiere at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in 2024, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, and starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. The production won Icke the Best Director Award at the 2025 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, as well as Best Actor and Best Actress for its leads, and the production won Best Revival at the 2025 Olivier Awards. It transferred to Broadway in December 2025, and went on to win Outstanding Adaptation at the 2026 Drama Desk Awards.

Robert Icke is one of the most visionary figures in theatre today, celebrated for his contemporary re-imaginings of classic texts by Shakespeare, Schiller, Chekhov, Aeschylus and Ibsen.

'Robert Icke is the great hope of British theatre' Time Out

'Electric... riveting from beginning to end... Icke has done an astonishing job... An old play is masterfully analysed and made newly devastating' — Guardian

'Stunning... Icke brilliantly remakes Sophocles' profoundly disturbing tragedy for our times' — Financial Times

'Wrenchingly tense... Icke invokes a sense of the past in a vivid contemporary milieu... an extraordinary evening... this show is mother****in' good' — Evening Standard

'Riveting... a slew of smart ironies, with the mother of all twists... tragedy at its best' — Sunday Times

'Lethal but compassionate... defiantly humane... a singularity of purpose that distils a famously lurid story into something empathetic, lucid and quite, quite devastating' — Time Out

'Stunning… razor-sharp and contemporary… a blinding theatrical experience that remains seared on the retina' — Stagedoor

'Electric... there will surely not be a more powerful production in the UK this year... a play for today' — Observer

Outstanding Adaptation - US Drama Desk Awards