The Royal Court Theatre announce full cast for The Unbelievers, a new play about family, memory and hope by Nick Payne.
Directed by Marianne Elliott and designed by Bunny Christie The Unbelievers stars Nicola Walker as a mother facing the disappearance of her son. Playing at the Royal Court Friday 10 October – Saturday 29 November 2025
The full cast announced today includes Esh Alladi, Alby Baldwin, Paul Higgins, Ella Lily Hyland, Harry Kershaw, Martin Marquez, Lucy Thackeray, Nicola Walker and Isabel Adomakoh Young.
‘I love my son. My son is alive.’
A teenager disappears. Time fractures. His mother will never give up hope.
The Unbelievers is a new play about the moments that shatter our world, and the ones that help us piece it back together.
Playwright Nick Payne (Constellations, We Live in Time) returns to the Royal Court with a startling portrait of motherhood, faith, family – and the lengths we go to for those we refuse to forget.
Directed by Marianne Elliott (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Angels in America), designed by Bunny Christie (Company, People Places and Things) and starring Nicola Walker (Unforgotten, The Split). The lighting design is by Jack Knowles, the composer and sound designer is Nicola T.Chang, movement direction by Etta Murfitt and casting by Charlotte Sutton CDG.
Access performances for The Unbelievers
Post show talk: Tuesday 21 October 2025, 7:30pm
Chilled Performance: Saturday 29 November 2025, 1.30pm
Captioned Performance: Saturday 8 November 2025, 1.30pm
BSL-interpreted Performance: Tuesday 4 November 2025, 7.30pm
Audio-Described Performance: Saturday 15 November 2025, 1.30pm with a touch tour at 12pm
About the cast of The Unbelievers
Esh Alladi
Theatre includes: This Much I Know (Hampstead); Great Expectations, Hobson’s Choice, Wit (Royal Exchange); The P Word (Bush); Out West (Lyric Hammersmith); Theatrical Digs (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre); The Argument (Theatre Royal Bath); Absolute Hell, The Beaux Stratagem, Dara, Behind The Beautiful Forevers War Horse Prom (&Royal Albert Hall) From Morning to Midnight, (National); Rutherford and Son (Crucible); An Adventure (Octagon Theatre); Twelfth Night (RSC); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (New Wolsey); Lions and Tigers, Nell Gwynn (&ETT) (Globe); The House of Inbetween (Stratford East); Boxer Bettle (Local Girls Productions).
Alby Baldwin
Theatre includes: Hamlet Hail to the Thief, Julius Caesar (RSC); Tender, Paradise Now! (Bush); Through the Cracks (ETT); Antigone (Holy What); Wild Swimming (Full Rogue); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Pride & Prejudice Sort Of* (West End); The Wolves (Stratford East); Dear Elizabeth (Gate); Chatter (CPT); The Reasons (NDT); Love Scenes for the End of the World, how to build a wax figure (November Theatre) Scripted (Sheffield Crucible).
Paul Higgins
For the Royal Court: Hope, Nightsongs, American Bagpipes, Conquest of the South Pole, A Wholly Healthy Glasgow.
Theatre includes: The Seagull (Barbican); Romeo and Juliet, The Doctor, Macbeth, Conversations After a Burial (Almeida); Local Hero (Chichester Festival); This is Memorial Device (Traverse/ Tron/ Riverside); The Meaning of Zong (Bristol Old Vic); Aristocrats, Temple, Luise Miller, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message… (Donmar); The Seagull (Lyric Hammersmith); Twilight Song (Park); Blackbird, King Lear (Citizens Theatre); Children of the Sun, Caledonia, The White Guard, Paul, An Enemy of the People (& Ahmanson, LA), The Hare Trilogy (National); Damascus (Traverse/ Kiln); Black Watch (National Theatre of Scotland); The Tempest (Tron); Measure for Measure (RSC); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Globe); Buried Alive (Hampstead); The Way of the World, Romeo & Juliet, A View from the Bridge (Royal Exchange); The Slab Boys Trilogy (Young Vic).
Ella Lily Hyland
Theatre includes: Grania (Abbey).
Martin Marquez
For the Royal Court: Stoning Mary, Identical Twins, Cleansed.
Other theatre includes: Dear England, Othello, This House, Husbands and Sons, Mother Courage and Her Children, Anything Goes (&West End) and Love’s Labour’s Lost (National); A View from the Bridge, BrokebackMountain, From Here to Eternity, Macbeth (West End); Ah, Wilderness! (Young Vic); Blasted (Sheffield Theatres); The Crucible, Of Mice and Men and Don Juan (West Yorkshire Playhouse); I Caught My Death in Venice, Gondoliers, Pal Joey and Insignificance (Chichester Festival); Snowbull (Hampstead); Brothers Marquez (Soho); Four Nights in Knaresborough (Kiln); The Iceman Cometh (Old Vic); The Front Page, Fool for Love (Donmar); Jude the Obscure, Private Lives and Flesh & Blood for Method & Madness; and Hamlet, A View from the Bridge, The Slicing Edge and Road (New Wolsey, Ipswich).
Harry Kershaw
Theatre includes: Our Country’s Good (Lyric Hammersmith), Fanny (Watermill Theatre), Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Broadway/LA/ West End, Good Luck Studio (UK Tour), Boris III (Edinburgh), What’s New Pussycat, Edmond De Bergerac (Birmingham Rep), The Madness Of George III (Nottingham Playhouse/ NT Live), This House (National Theatre/Headlong), Mischief Movie Night (West End), The Play That Goes Wrong (West End), One Man Two Guvnors (Theatre Royal Haymarket).
Lucy Thackeray
Theatre includes: The Buddha of Suburbia (RSC/Wise Children/Barbican); Brief Encounter (West End); Heroine (High Tide/ Theatre Clwyd); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Globe); Bike, Fallen Angels (Salisbury Playhouse); Corrie! (UK/New Zealand Tour;, Amaka (Jack Studio); My Beautiful Black Dog (Bush); Sweeney Todd, Noises Off, How the Other Half Loves (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch).
Nicola Walker
For the Royal Court: The Cane, Relocated, Fresh Kills, Sweetheart, The Libertine/The Man of Mode, Hated Nightfall.
Other theatre includes: Unicorn (West End); The Corn is Green, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Season’s Greetings, Gethsemane, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Edmond (National); A View From the Bridge (Young Vic/West End/Broadway); Di and Viv and Rose, The Dead Eye Boy (Hampstead); Mrs Klein, Cloud Nine (Almeida); Modern Dance for Beginners (Soho); Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Sheffield Crucible); A Lie of the Mind, Passion Play (& Comedy Theatre) (Donmar); Fifty Revolutions (Whitehall).
Isabel Adomakoh Young (shey/they)
For the Royal Court: Living Newspaper.
Theatre credits include: 0800 Cupid (THISISPOPBABY) Listen Dance, Little Bulb (Little Bulb), As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe), Modest (UK Tour, Kiln), Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic), Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre), Meatballs (Hampstead Theatre), The Provoked Wife (RSC), Venice Preserved (RSC), Bite Your Tongue (Hackney Showroom/Talawa), Brood (Arcola) and The 80s Show (The Glory).
