Robert Icke (Writer & Director)

Robert Icke is an award-winning writer and director, working in theatre and on screen.

Robert Icke’s current projects include Oedipus starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville, which is now playing on Broadway. The production won a 2025 Olivier Award following its run at the Wyndham’s Theatre in London.

Icke is also directing his stage adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, for a new UK tour in 2026.

Other recent projects include writing and directing Manhunt at the Royal Court Theatre in London; and Player Kings starring Ian McKellen at the Noel Coward Theatre in London.

Other recent productions include Judas, Children of Nora, and Oedipus at International Theater Amsterdam, where until 2023 he was Ibsen Artist in Residence.

His adaptation of Animal Farm played an extensive national tour in 2022. Icke’s monologue condensation of Enemy of the People starred Ann Dowd at Park Avenue Armory, and was one of the first new pieces of theatre to play in New York post the shutdown. He also directed Ian McKellen in Player Kings at the Noël Coward Theatre in London.

In six years at the Almeida, five of his productions transferred to the West End, and four to New York. These included his adaptations of The Wild Duck, Mary Stuart (also West End and National tour), Uncle Vanya, Oresteia (also West End; Schauspiel Stuttgart; Park Avenue Armory), and 1984 (co-created with Duncan Macmillan, also Broadway; West End; national and international tours).

As a director, his productions included Hamlet (also West End; Park Avenue Armory; and broadcast on BBC2); The Fever and Mr Burns. His final production at the Almeida was The Doctor, which played at Park Avenue Armory, in the West End in 2022, and at the Burgtheater in Vienna and Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.

In 2012, Robert Icke adapted and directed a new production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, produced by Headlong, starring Daniel Boyd and Catrin Stewart.

His awards include two Evening Standard ‘Best Director’ Awards; the Critics’ Circle Award, the Kurt Hübner Award (for his debut production in Germany); and the Olivier Award for ‘Best Director’, of which he was the youngest ever winner. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Robert Icke Links & Socials

IMDB