Mark Rylance to star in Dr Semmelweis in West End this summer

Mark Rylance is to star in Dr Semmelweis in the West End this summer.

The critically acclaimed Bristol Old Vic production, directed by Tom Morris, will open at the Harold Pinter Theatre on 11 July, with previews from 29 June, and running until Saturday 7 October.

Rylance reprises the title role from the original run in 2022. Rylance said: “Here is a person who makes one of the most important discoveries in modern medicine – what we now call ‘Bacteria’ – and yet he is pretty much unknown because for forty years, until Louis Pasteur and Dr Lister make the same discovery, no one will listen to him. Why?

“I was intrigued. The inspiration to act our story with a chorus of ballet dancers and a quartet representing the many thousands of mothers who perished unnecessarily, makes this a very powerful piece of theatre for me. I am thrilled to be reviving it in London at the Harold Pinter Theatre.”

In Vienna, a city of artistic and scientific revolution, thousands of women are still dying in childbirth each and every year. Only Dr Semmelweis can see the invisible killer at work, but to stop it, he must convince his colleagues to admit culpability and approve change.

Damned by an establishment that questions his methods, his motives and even his sanity, Semmelweis is haunted by the women he has failed to save. Can he finally convince the greatest doctors of 19th century Europe to accept his argument – and what will it cost him to make an almost impossible case?

Written by Stephen Brown with Mark Rylance, the production has set and costume design by Ti Green, lighting design by Richard Howell, choreography by Antonia Franceschi and music by Adrian Sutton.

With preview tickets from £10 and over 350 tickets a week at £25 or less, the production will play for a strictly limited 14-week run. Tickets go on general sale from 31 March at 12PM.

For more information and to sign up for advance ticket sales, visit drsemmelweistheplay.com