A Number
Overview of the production
How might a son feel to discover that he is only one of a number of identical copies? What happens when a father is confronted by the results of an outrageous genetic experiment?
In Caryl Churchill’s thrilling drama, which won the 2002 Evening Standard Award for Best Play, Roger Allam plays Salter, the father. Colin Morgan plays all his sons. Polly Findlay directs.
“What a tremendous play this is, moving, thought-provoking, and dramatically thrilling.” Daily Telegraph
“Revelatory production from Polly Findlay”
TimeOut ★★★★★
“Colin Morgan is superb”
Financial Times ★★★★
“Phenomenal performance by Roger Allam”
TimeOut ★★★★★
“Beautifully and also brilliantly designed”
The Telegraph ★★★★
General Information
Ticket prices
£55–£15
Premium tickets available
Performance schedule
Monday–Saturday: 7.30pm
Wednesdays & Saturdays: 2.30pm
Wednesday 19 February: 7pm
Length
Approx 1 hour – no interval
Access Performances
Audio Described: Wednesday 11 March, 2.30pm
Captioned: Saturday 14 March, 2.30pm
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Additional content
From the programme
'Not Ordinary, Not Safe'
Sos Eltis
Caryl Churchill was the most important female playwright of the twentieth century. That is a simple statement of fact. She may well be the most important and influential playwright (of any gender) of the 21st century – which is a far larger statement…
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Cast
Roger Allam
Theatre includes for the National Theatre Rutherford and Son, Afterlife, Democracy, Albert Speer, The Cherry Orchard, Money, Summerfolk and Troilus and Cressida; for the RSC Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, The Seagull, Les Misérables (creating the role of Javert) and the title role in Macbeth; at Shakespeare’s Globe The Tempest and Henry IV Parts 1 & 2; at the Old Vic Aladdin and The Importance of Being Earnest; and in the West End City of Angels, Arcadia, Art, Blackbird, Boeing Boeing, La Cage aux Folles and The Moderate Soprano. Other theatre includes Pravda, The God of Carnage, Uncle Vanya, Privates on Parade, The Moderate Soprano and Seminar.
Television includes Endeavour, The Thick of It, Parade’s End, The Missing, Game of Thrones, Ashes to Ashes and Sarah and Duck.
Film includes The Hippopotamus, The Lady in the Van, The Truth Commissioner, The Book Thief, Tamara Drewe, The Queen, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, The Angel’s Share, V for Vendetta and Speed Racer.
Radio includes Cabin Pressure, How Does That Make You Feel?, The Government Inspector and Conversations from a Long Marriage.
Awards He has received Olivier Awards for Money, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and Privates on Parade; and an Evening Standard Film Award for Tamara Drewe.
February 2020
Colin Morgan
Training Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Theatre includes All My Sons at the Old Vic; Translations at the National Theatre; Gloria at Hampstead; Mojo at the Harold Pinter; The Tempest at Shakespeare’s Globe, Our Private Life at the Royal Court; A Prayer for My Daughter and Vernon God Little at the Young Vic; and All About My Mother at the Old Vic.
Television includes Humans, The Fall, The Living and the Dead, Quirke, Merlin and Doctor Who.
Film includes The Happy Prince, Benjamin, The Huntsman, Legend, Testament of Youth, Parked and Island.
Awards He has won Best Drama Performance at the National Television Awards for Merlin and a Variety Club Award for Outstanding New Talent.
February 2020
Richard Rycroft
Trained at Rose Bruford in his late 30s.
Theatre includes The Home (short tour: 48-hour performances of residential immersive theatre about the Care Sector); Christopher Green’s Prurience at the Royal Festival Hall; The History Boys at Greenwich Theatre; Hamlet at Oxford Castle; and The Alchemist at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith.
Television includes Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall, Apple Tree Yard, Mr Selfridge and Secret Smile.
Film includes Bridget Jones’s Baby and Greed.
He also performs stand-up comedy, mostly as the character Magnus Turner MP.
February 2020
Jesse Rutherford
Theatre includes Bed Seven at the Tristan Bates; Killer Joe at the Trafalgar Studios; Cornerman at the Vaults, on tour and at Pleasance Courtyard; Goody at the Plesance Courtyard and Greenwich; Luna Park at the Soho / Zoo Southside; and Chicken Shop at the Park.
Television includes Locked Up Abroad, EastEnders, The Halcyon Hotel and Doctors.
February 2020
Creative Team
Caryl Churchill
Plays include Owners (1972), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976), Traps (1976), Cloud Nine (1979), Top Girls (1982), Fen (1984), Serious Money (1987), Ice Cream (1989), Mad Forest (1990), The Skriker (1994), Blue Heart (1997), This is a Chair (1997), Far Away (2000), A Number (2002), A Dream Play (2005, translation from Strindberg), Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (2006), Seven Jewish Children (2009), Love and Information (2012), Here We Go (2015), Pigs and Dogs (2016), Escaped Alone (2016) and Glass.Kill.Bluebeard.Imp (2019).
Music theatre includes Lives of the Great Poisoners (1991) and Hotel (1997), both with Orlando Gough.
She has also written for radio and television.
February 2020
Polly Findlay
Theatre includes Grayson Perry’s A Show for Normal People; A Number at The Bridge; Rutherford and Son, Beginning (also West End), As You Like It, Treasure Island, Antigone, Protest Song and Double Feature at the National Theatre; Gefährten (War Horse) at Theater des Westens, Berlin; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Limehouse at the Donmar; Ghosts at HOME; The Alchemist, The Merchant of Venice and Arden of Faversham for the RSC; Frøken Julie at Aarhus Theatre, Denmark; Krapp’s Last Tape and A Taste of Honey at Sheffield Crucible; The Country Wife and Good at the Royal Exchange; Derren Brown: Svengali in the West End and on UK tour; Twisted Tales at the Lyric Hammersmith; Honest at Royal & Derngate (also Edinburgh and Soho Theatre); Eigengrau at the Bush; and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and Thyestes at the Arcola.
Awards include Olivier for Best Entertainment (with Derren Brown, 2014), the JMK Young Director’s Award (2007) and the 2006/7 Bulldog Princeps Bursary Award at the National Theatre Studio.
October 2021
Lizzie Clachan
Theatre includes A Number at The Bridge; The Son at the Kiln (also West End); The Nico Project at Manchester International Festival and Melbourne Festival; Rutherford and Son, Absolute Hell, As You Like It, The Beaux’ Stratagem, Treasure Island, Edward II, Port and A Woman Killed With Kindness at the National Theatre; Cyprus Avenue (also Dublin, Belfast and New York), Fireworks, Adler & Gibb, Gastronauts, The Witness, Our Private Life, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Ladybird and Jumpy (also West End) at the Royal Court; Far Away, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Blindness (also New York, Toronto, Washington, DC, Mexico City, Amsterdam and UK tour) at the Donmar; Yerma (also New York and Berlin), The Life of Galileo, Macbeth and A Season in the Congo at the Young Vic; Tipping the Velvet, Contains Violence and Absolute Beginners at the Lyric Hammersmith; The Skriker at the Royal Exchange; Carmen Disruption at the Almeida; All My Sons at Regent’s Park; A Sorrow Beyond Dreams at Burgtheater, Vienna; Longing, The Trial of Ubu and Tiger Country at the Hampstead; The Rings of Saturn at Schauspiel, Cologne; Happy Days at the Crucible; Far Away at Bristol Old Vic; I’ll Be the Devil, Days of Significance and The American Pilot for the RSC; and The Architects, Money, Tropicana, Amato Saltone, Ether Frolics, Dance Bear Dance, The Ballad of Bobby Francois and The Tennis Show for Shunt, which she co-founded in 1998.
Opera includes The Mask of Orpheus, Orphée, Orpheus in the Underworld and Orpheus and Euridice for ENO; Seven Deadly Sins/Mahagonny Songspiel at the Royal Opera House; Nixon in China for Staatsoper Hanover; Jenufa for Nationale Opera & Ballet; La Traviata for Theater Basel/ENO; Pelléas et Mélisande for Teatr Wielki, Poland/ Festival d’Aix en Provence; Le Vin Herbé for Staatsoper Berlin; and Bliss for Staatsoper Hamburg.
October 2021
Marc Tritschler
Marc Tritschler is a pianist, music director, music supervisor and composer of music for the theatre. In 2020, he was appointed Creative Director of Music at the National Theatre.
Theatre includes A Number at The Bridge, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar, Macbeth at the National Theatre and Uncle Vanya at HOME. As Composer: The Merchant of Venice for the RSC and Ghosts at HOME. As Music Director: As You Like It and A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer (Complicité) at the National Theatre; and War Horse at Theater des Westens, Berlin. As Music Supervisor: We Will Rock You in Europe.
He was previously Deputy Music Director at Friedrichstadt-Palast, Berlin.
Peter Mumford
Peter Mumford works as a lighting, set and projection designer.
Theatre includes My Name is Lucy Barton at The Bridge and in New York; Far Away and The Way of the World at the Donmar Warehouse; Eight Hotels and The Stepmother at Chichester; The Ferryman, Long Day’s Journey into Night, 42nd Street, Top Hat and Stepping Out in the West End; The Children at the Royal Court and Escaped Alone at the Royal Court and in New York; King Kong (Helpmann and Green Room Awards for Best Lighting); Global Creatures in Australia; The Slaves of Solitude, Wild Honey and Wonderland at Hampstead; High Society at the Old Vic; Ghosts at the Almeida/Trafalgar Studios and in NY; Bull at the Young Vic; Sucker Punch (Knight of Illumination Award) at the Royal Court; and John, Scenes from an Execution, Twelfth Night, All’s Well that Ends Well, The Hothouse, The Reporter, The Invention of Love, Vincent in Brixton, Bacchai (Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design), The Merchant of Venice and Summerfolk at the National Theatre.
Opera includes The Mask of Orpheus at ENO; Beauty and Sadness at Chamber Opera, Hong Kong; Werther, Faust, Carmen and Peter Grimes at the Metropolitan, New York; Manon Lescaut at Baden Baden and Metropolitan, New York Met; The Damnation of Faust at ENO/Berlin/Palermo/De Vlaamse; Madame Butterfly at ENO/New York Met; Pelléas et Mélisande at the Mariinsky; Eugene Onegin for LA Opera and ROH; La Traviata at Glyndebourne; Fidelio and The Ring for Scottish Opera; The Midsummer Marriage at Chicago Lyric Opera; The Bartered Bride for the ROH; Faust at Vilnius City Opera; and Butterfly and Andrea Chénier for Opera North.
Dance includes Within the Golden Hour and Corybantic Games for the ROH; Carmen for ROH/Texas Ballet Theater/Queensland Ballet/Carlos Acosta; The King Dances, Faster, E=mc2,and Take Five for Birmingham Royal Ballet; Carmen for Miami City Ballet/Richard Aston; and Ein Reigen for Vienna State Ballet.
In addition to his lighting design work, Peter Mumford designed the sets for Dying City at the Royal Court and Carmen at Miami City Ballet. He has also directed and designed concert stagings of The Ring Cycle (which won the South Bank Sky Arts Opera Award 2017), The Flying Dutchman for Opera North, Fidelio for Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Otello for Bergen National Opera.
February 2020
Carolyn Downing
Theatre includes Summer and Smoke (also West End – Olivier nomination for Best Sound Design), Chimerica (also West End – Olivier Award), Carmen Disruption and Blood Wedding at the Almeida; Death of a Salesman (also West End), Blue/Orange, Blackta and After Miss Julie at the Young Vic; All My Sons at the Old Vic; The Welkin, Downstate (Steppenwolf), The Motherfucker with the Hat, Dara, Protest Song and Double Feature at the National Theatre; White Teeth at the Kiln; Mother Courage, The Producers, The House of Bernarda Alba, Much Ado About Nothing and To Kill a Mockingbird at the Royal Exchange Manchester; Me and My Girl and Fiddler on the Roof at Chichester; The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and King John for the Royal Shakespeare Company; A Woman of No Importance in the West End; Les Liaisons Dangereuses (also Broadway), Fathers and Sons, Dimetos and Absurdia at the Donmar Warehouse; The Believers, Beautiful Burnout and Love Song for Frantic Assembly; Hope, The Pass, The Low Road and Choir Boy at the Royal Court; The House That Will Not Stand and Handbagged (also West End) at the Tricycle; All My Sons on Broadway; Angels in America for Headlong; Thérèse Raquin at Theatre Royal Bath; Twelfth Night at Sheffield Crucible; Kasimir and Karoline and Fanny och Alexander at Malmö Stadsteater; and Tre Kronor at Dramaten Stockholm.
Opera includes Benjamin Dernière Nuit at Opera Lyon; How the Whale Became at the Royal Opera House; American Lulu for Opera Group; and After Dido for English National Opera.
Exhibitions include Hut 11A: The Bomb Breakthrough at Bletchley Park; So You Say You Want a Revolution? Records & Rebels 1965–70 at the V&A; Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones at the Saatchi Gallery; Collider at the Science Museum; and Louis Vuitton: Series 3.
She has also created sound design elements for Shawn Mendes’ Illuminate tour (2017) and Louis Vuitton Ready-to-wear collection shows at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and The Louvre, Paris.
February 2020
Hannah Joss
Charlotte Burton
Robert Sterne
Charlotte Espiner
Johanna Coe
Lily Mollgaard
Current productions include My Neighbour Totoro for the RSC; The Car Man at the Royal Albert Hall; The Southbury Child, John Gabriel Borkman, Straight Line Crazy and Guys and Dolls at The Bridge Theatre; Sleeping Beauty for Matthew Bourne’s UK tour; Peaky Blinders for Rambert’s UK Tour and Tammy Faye Musical at The Almeida.
In the last twenty years Lily Mollgaard has worked on over 270 shows in the West End, on Broadway and beyond. She spent 10 years running the props department at Shakespeare’s Globe and 15 years as Prop Supervisor for Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures which included The Car Man, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Red Shoes.
THEATRE includes A Number, Beat The Devil, Talking Heads, Bach and Sons, The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage, Julius Caesar, Night Fall and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Bridge; Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre; Jesus Christ Superstar for UK tour and Broadway; Sunset Boulevard and Bombay Dreams at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and on Broadway; Joseph and Made in Dagenham at the Adelphi Theatre; The Producers, Oliver! and Shrek at Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre; Spamalot at the Playhouse Theatre; Sister Act at the London Palladium; Hairspray at the Shaftsbury Theatre; School of Rock at the Gillian Lynne Theatre; The Wild Duck at the Almeida; Company at the Gielgud Theatre; The Pinter Season (One, Two, Five and Six) at the Harold Pinter Theatre for the Jamie Lloyd Company; Red Shoes, Nutcracker and Midnight Bell for Matthew Bourne; Evita at Regent’s Park; Blithe Spirit at Theatre Royal Bath; Cyrano de Bergerac for the Jamie Lloyd Company; Leopoldstadt for Sonia Friedman Productions; Prince of Egypt at the Dominion Theatre and 9 to 5 at the Savoy Theatre.
August 2022