The full cast has been confirmed for Roy Williams’s new play Sucker Punch, which will turn the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs into a boxing arena when it opens there on 11 June (press night 19 June).
Daniel Kaluuya and Anthony Welsh will play the two boxers and former friends at the heart of Williams’s play, which looks back on what it was like to be young and black in the 1980s and asks if the right battles have been fought, let alone won.
The cast also comprises Nigel Lindsay, Gary Beadle, Trevor Laird, Jason Maza and Sarah Ridgeway.
Kaluuya has previously appeared at the Royal Court in Oxford Street, while Welsh has stage credits including Pornography at the Tricycle theatre and the Laurence Olivier Award-nominated The Brothers Size at the Young Vic.
They are joined by London theatre regular Lindsay, who returns to the Royal Court where he previously appeared in Push Up, The Woman Before and King Lear. His many West End credits include Under The Blue Sky at the Duke of York’s theatre, The Pillowman at the National Theatre and The Real Thing at the Donmar Warehouse, in addition to several productions for the Almeida theatre. Lindsay can also currently be seen in Chris Morris’s film Four Lions.
Beadle is best known for playing Paul Truman in EastEnders, though his theatre credits include Family Man at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Maza, Ridgeway and Laird have, between them, accumulated credits at the National Theatre, Tricycle and Bush theatres and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The cast is being finely honed by former professional boxer Errol Christie, previously European boxing champion and a regular fixture on ITV’s Fight Night during the 1980s.
Sacha Wares’s production of Sucker Punch plays at the Royal Court until 24 July and follows Posh, which ends its run on 22 May.
CB