The full cast has been announced for a brand new production of Hugh Whitemore’s acclaimed play Breaking the Code at the Royal & Derngate

The full cast has been announced for a brand new production of Hugh Whitemore’s acclaimed play Breaking the Code at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton. The play follows mastermind Alan Turing’s career as a visionary mathematician and codebreaker and examines how society’s attitude towards his sexuality changed the course of his life. 

Mastermind. Code breaker. Maverick. Arguably one of the most important and inquisitive minds of the twentieth century. Alan Turing is renowned for cracking the Enigma code at Bletchley Park, which effectively secured a victory for the Allied forces in World War II.

From triumph to tragedy, get to know a human being who loved, lost and never stopped asking questions in a quest for truth and understanding in this new production of Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code.

Breaking the Code is a co-production between Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Landmark Theatres and Oxford Playhouse, in association with Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and HOME.

Directed by Royal & Derngate’s Artistic Director Jesse Jones as part of the theatre’s ‘Made in Northampton’ season, for the first time the revival will feature new material that speaks to Turing’s lasting legacy for modern Britain and the development of Turing’s law, featuring a new epilogue by Neil Bartlett that takes into consideration Turing’s Royal pardon in 2013. 

Breaking the Code will open at Royal & Derngate on Tuesday, 16 September, and run until Saturday, 27 September, before touring to Barnstaple, Oxford, Peterborough, Liverpool, and Manchester. For ticket information, visit the Royal & Derngate website.

The role of Alan Turing will be played by Mark Edel-Hunt (Leopoldstadt, West End). The cast also includes Niall Costigan (The Railway Children, Hull Truck Theatre) as Mick Ross, Joseph Edwards (The Red Shoes, Royal Shakespeare Company) as Christopher Morcom & Sixth-Former, Peter Hamilton Dyer (The Promise, Chichester Festival Theatre) as Dillwyn Knox, Carla Harrison-Hodge (Cyrano de Bergerac, Jamie Lloyd Company) as Pat Green, Susie Trayling (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, West End) as Sara Turing/Smith, and Joe Usher (Falkland Sound, RSC) as Ron Miller & Nikos.

The production is directed by Jesse Jones (Education, Education, Education, Royal & Derngate/The Wardrobe Ensemble) with set and costume design by Jonathan Fensom (The Two Popes, Royal & Derngate). Johanna Town (The Comedy About Spies, Mischief/West End) is the lighting designer, and Robin Colyer (The King’s Speech, Watermill Theatre) is the sound designer and composer. They are joined by Gerrard Martinas, movement director; Hannah Miller, casting director; and Gemma Boaden, Voice and Dialect Coach.