Halvard Solness, a leading architect at the height of his fame, is paralysed by fear. Fear of the younger generation. Fear of irrelevance. Fear of the past catching up with him.
When young, enigmatic Hilde Wangel bursts back into his world, she reminds him of the promise he made her ten years ago.
As she inspires him to even greater heights, Solness is forced to confront the true cost of his success. Will his final creation set him free, or be his downfall?
Greg Hicks stars, reuniting with Arcola’s Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen following sold-out productions An Enemy of The People and Richard III, in this bold new staging of Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece about ambition and legacy.
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Running time
2 hours 20 minutes (including interval) -
Age guidance
13+ -
Content warnings
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Discounts
Concessions available
Pay What You Can Tuesdays
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Captioned performance
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Relaxed performance
Praise for Mehmet Ergen’s previous productions:
"This is Ibsen stripped to the bone and delivered with rare urgency"– The Guardian, on An Enemy of the People
"Absolutely cracking… Ergen’s production [is] thrillingly tense"– Independent on Sunday, on An Enemy of the People
"Thoughtful and thought-provoking"– British Theatre Guide, on The Cherry Orchard
Rehearsal photography
The Company
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Louisa Binder
Hilde Wangel
Louisa Binder
Hilde Wangel
Louisa Binder can currently be seen playing the new love interest in Amazon’s Your Fault: London, and has recently wrapped filming the final instalment of the trilogy, Our Fault: London. She was one of the leads opposite Natasha McElhone in three seasons of Hotel Portofino, and recently completed Wind of Change; a musical biopic about the legendary German rock band, Scorpions. She’s just finished filming Channel 4’s upcoming series, Up To No Good, in which she plays the younger version of Glenn Close’s character.
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Sally George
Aline Solness
Sally George
Aline Solness
Sally trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. MA Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has worked extensively as an actress for over four decades, starting her career with several years as a member of The Royal Shakespeare Company.
Theatre includes: RSC: The Taming of the Shrew, Oedipus; The New Inn, Richard III; (Australia); Penny for a Song; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Temptation, Misalliance, Voices from Prison; Fenn, Titus Andronicus; The Taming of the Shrew (Regional tour and Japan). People Places and Things: National Theatre and West End. When We Are Married (National Tour), Oedipus: Almeida Theatre, Case of The Poet, My Matisse, You Can’t Take It With You, Ghosts, Women Laughing: Kings Head Theatre. My Matisse (one woman show) New End Theatre and Edinburgh festival. The Comedy of Errors and The Jolly Potters: New Vic Theatre Stoke. Larkin With Women: West Yorkshire Playhouse. Something Blue: Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough; House and Garden: Theatre Royal Northampton, Traveller Without Luggage: Critics Up For Review Battersea Arts. Richard III: Northern Broadsides Riverside Studios, Tower of London and Copenhagen; Storm in A Flower Vase, West End, Lady Mosley’s Suite: Trafalgar Studios. An Elizabethan Christmas: Hampton Court Palace. Kitchen Sink: Hornchurch, Positive, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice: Park Theatre and Bolton Octagon.
TV includes: Holby City, Casualty, Footballers Wives, Hollyoaks, Doctors, Daziel and Pascoe, Heartbeat, Out of Sight, The Bill, EastEnders, Persuasion, Measure for Measure, Buddha of Suburbia.
Film: Women at War, The Diaries, Love Somehow (three best actress awards), The Light Retracts the Shadows, Absolution, The Guard of Auschwitz, The Diary of Winifred Meeks, About a Girl. (Two best supporting actress awards). Tender Art, Noble Genius. BBC Radio; The Roy Orbison Story, Temptation, Richard III, King Street Juniors Revisited. Her new play I Can Die Too co -written with Alan Cumming and Frances Ruffelle premiered earlier this year at The Pitlochry Festival Theatre. She is soon to tour the US in a new play: Love Notes playing Clara Schumann. And is thrilled to be here at the Arcola in this Ibsen classic.
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Peter Guinness
Doctor Herdal
Peter Guinness
Doctor Herdal
Peter trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Theatre roles include Buckingham in Richard III and Guy in After Independence at the Arcola, and recently Brabantio in Tom Morris’s production of Othello at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Over the years his theatre credits include leading roles at the Citizens Theatre Glasgow, the RSC, the Donmar Warehouse, Manchester Royal Exchange, the Old Vic and the Young Vic, the Chichester Festival Theatre, Birmingham Rep and the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond.
Numerous film credits include Zach Snyder’s Justice League, Official Secrets, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Centurion, The Conclave, Secret Passage, Greenfingers, Sleepy Hollow, and Alien 3. Most recently, he worked alongside Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner in George Clooney’s Boys on the Boat.
Television credits include the leading antagonist Petr Kovac in series three of Jack Ryan, Leif in The Girlfriend Experience, Sir Ector in Cursed, General Malcolm in Pennyworth and General Dreedle in Catch 22, Major Burov in Chernobyl, Dimitri Polyakov in The Assets, Pushkin in Strikeback, Tomas De Torquemada in Da Vinci’s Demons and Ari in The Adventures of Merlin. Most recently he appeared as Sir George Chapman in Red Eye.
Radio credits include The Picture of Dorian Gray, Never Never Land and The Waves. Audio includes Ministry of Chance and Strangeness in Space. Phantom of the Opera, Dracula’s Guest and Other Dark Tales, Blake’s 7: Point of No Return, Judge Dredd: Grud is Dead and several episodes of Doctor Who.
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Greg Hicks
Halvard Solness
Greg Hicks
Halvard Solness
Theatre includes: Elektra (Duke of Yorks), The Grapes of Wrath (National Theatre), The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Marylebone Theatre), Ghosts (Sam Wannamaker), Oklahoma! (Young Vic), Dinner With Groucho (Civic Theatre Dublin/ Belfast International Theatre), The Oresteia (NT), The Open House (Bath/Print Room), Richard III, The Kreutzer Sonata, Clarion (Arcola), Play Strindberg (Ustinov Studio), All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, Little Eagles, Anthony & Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, A Winter’s Tale, King Lear (All for the RSC), Angels in America (Headlong), Venice Preserved (Citizens), Coriolanus (Old Vic), Critics Circle Award & Olivier nomination Best Actor.
TV includes: Domina, Citizen Charlie, Burton & Taylor, The Bible, Midsomer Murders.
Film includes: The Mercy, Snow White & the Huntsman.
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Robin Hooper
Knut Brovik
Robin Hooper
Knut Brovik
Theatre includes: Seasons with the Liverpool Everyman, Glasgow Citizens and Half Moon Theatres. John Paul George Ringo and Bert (Lyric Shaftesbury Avenue), Bloody Poetry, Star Gazy Pie (Royal Court Theatre), Bright Room Called Day (Bush) The Public (Theatre Royal Stratford East), The Art of Success ( Paines Plough), Pamela (Shared Experience), The Country Wife, Lady Windermere’s Fan (Cambridge Theatre Company), Saturday Sunday Monday (Chichester), The Importance of Being Earnest (Nottingham), What the Butler Saw (Northampton), Dead Funny (York and Bolton), My Night With Reg (Stoke on Trent)
Television includes: Walter, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Office, Monarch of the Glen, Riot at the Rite, Twenty Twelve, Mrs Biggs, Lucan, Quacks, The Nevers and January Nights.
Plays written for the theatre include: The Move (NT Platform and Tour), Astonish Me (Not the RSC Festival), Queer Fish (BAC), Free from Sorrow (Tristan Bates), Not the Love I Cry For (Arcola), Love Your Soldiers (Sheffield Crucible Studio), Foul Pages (The Hope Theatre) and Broken Lad (Arcola Outside / Published Aurora Metro Books). Previously Literary Manager for both Paines Plough New Writing Theatre Company and The Royal Court Theatre.
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Josh Picton
Understudy Ragnar Brovik
Josh Picton
Understudy Ragnar Brovik
Joshua Picton is an actor and theatre maker, trained at East 15 Acting School. His professional credits include stage performances at the Vaults, the Edinburgh Fringe, and across the UK on national tour, as well as audiobook narration. Though this marks his Arcola debut as a performer, Joshua has been a proud supporter of the Arcola Mental Health Community Company for the past four years. He is thrilled to join The Master Builder at a theatre that means so much to him.
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Ryan Wichert
Ragnar Brovik
Ryan Wichert
Ragnar Brovik
Film includes: Control (Studio Canal), Entropy (Amazon Prime), Munich (Netflix), The Behemoth (Black Mandala Films), Spencer (Shoebox Films), The Keeper (20th Century Studios), and Another Mother’s Son (Bill Kenwright Films).
TV includes: Maxton Hall (Amazon MGM Studios), Berlin Noir (AppleTV), The Queens Gambit (Netflix), Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin (Universal), Notruf Hafenkante (ZDF Studios), How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast) (Netflix), and Nazi Megastructures S4-5 (National Geographic).
Theatre includes: Lowest of the Low (National Theatre Germany + Turkey), The Importance of Being Earnest (Euro Theatre Bonn), Wuthering Heights (Euro Theatre Bonn), The Cherry Orchard (Arcola Theatre).
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Jade Williams
Kaja Fosli
Jade Williams
Kaja Fosli
Theatre includes: Magic (Chichester Festival Theatre), Ukraine Unbroken, The Cherry Orchard, The Lower Depths, Sons Without Fathers, Palace of the End (Arcola), Selecting a Ghost (Two Lines), Everywoman (Bunker), Love’s Labour’s Lost, Doctor Faustus, God of Soho, Henry IV, Bedlam, As You Like It, A New World (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Moderate Soprano (West End), The Seagull, Platonov (National Theatre & Chichester), The Father (West End, Tricycle and Bath), In Basildon (Royal Court), Chatroom/Citizenship, Market Boy (National Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Lyceum) The Girls Guide to Saving the World (Hightide), Moon Tiger (Theatre Royal, Bath), Piranha Heights, Shraddha (Soho Theatre).
TV and Film Includes: EastEnders, DCI Banks, Holby City, Judge John Deed, Canterbury Tales, William and Mary, Bad Girls, Anne Frank.
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Henrik Ibsen
Playwright
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David Edgar
Translator
David Edgar
Translator
David Edgar’s original plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company include Destiny (1976), Maydays (1983, Plays and Players best play award), Pentecost (1994, Evening Standard best play award) and The New Real (2024) His work for the National Theatre include The Shape of the Table (1990), Albert Speer (2000) and Playing with Fire (2005). His adaptations include a multi-award-winning version of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (RSC, 1980-1) and A Christmas Carol (2017). In 2018 he wrote and presented a touring solo show, Trying it On. In 1989 he founded Britain’s first graduate playwriting course, at the University of Birmingham. His book about playwriting, How Plays Work, was published by Nick Hern Books in 2009.
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Mehmet Ergen
Director
Mehmet Ergen
Director
Mehmet Ergen is the co-founder and current Artistic Director of the Arcola Theatre, London, founding and co curating Arcola’s annual Grimeborn Opera Festival as part of this role.
He was co-founder and the first Artistic Director of the Southwark Playhouse, Associate Producer at the Battersea Arts Centre, Opera Season Advisor and judge for BBC Radio drama.
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Robert Innes Hopkins
Designer
Robert Innes Hopkins
Designer
Theatre credits include: Stage Kiss (Hampstead Theatre), Anne Boleyn The Musical (Hever Castle), All’s Well That Ends Well, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Don Quixote, Oppenheimer (RSC), Neville’s Island, Speed the Plow, Clybourne Park (West End), Dear Jack, Dear Louise, Cry Baby, Kenny Morgan (Arcola), Other Desert Cities (Old Vic), The Crucible, Swallows and Amazons (Bristol Old Vic), King Lear (Chichester Festival Theatre/BAM).
Opera credits include: Die Fledermaus (Opera Theatre St. Louis), La Traviata (LA Opera, US), Tamerlano, Belshazzar (The Grange Festival), Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Tosca (San Francisco Opera), La Traviata (San Francisco Opera), Brand New Orchestra Shell, Siegfried, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Rigoletto (Lyric Opera Chicago), In Parenthesis, War and Peace, Rigoletto, Flying Dutchman (Welsh National Opera).
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Richard Williamson
Lighting Designer
Richard Williamson
Lighting Designer
Previous work includes: The Olivier award winning Rotterdam (West End/Off-Broadway/UK National Tour), Crocodile Fever (Arcola Theatre), Dogs of Europe (Belarus Free Theatre at the Barbican Centre and international tour), Richard III, An Arab Tragedy (Swan Theatre Stratford/International tour), Sampled and Danse Élargie (Sadler’s Wells), Great Expectations (UK tour), Little Miss Sunshine (Arcola Theatre and UK Tour), Fiddler on the Roof and The Comedy about a Bank Robbery (Istanbul), Beowulf, Septimus Bean and His Amazing Machine, Jason and the Argonauts (Unicorn), What’s On Stage ‘Best Production’ Winner Thebes Land (also video), New Nigerians, Drones Baby Drones (also video), Shrapnel (also video), Mare Rider, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Country (Arcola Theatre), A Political History of Smack and Crack (Edinburgh Fringe and Soho Theatre), Oedipus at Colonus (Cambridge Arts Theatre) and The Body (Barbican Centre).
Richard trained at LAMDA, is a Trustee of the Kings Head Theatre, is a board member of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, and develops industry-leading applications zoomOSC and zoomISO.
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Deniz Dortok
Sound Designer & Composer
Deniz Dortok
Sound Designer & Composer
Deniz Dortok is a London-based sound designer, composer and performer working across theatre, film, opera and contemporary classical music. He recently completed his Master’s degree in Composition at the Royal College of Music (RCM) with Distinction. His work includes Toffee (BFI London, Straight 8 winner), Catfish the Cabaret (Edinburgh Fringe), and The Sequel (King’s Head Theatre), where his music was praised for enhancing the narrative’s mystical and eerie qualities. Other recent works include Nocturna, a concept album released on Berlin label re:natura exploring light pollution, a chamber piece for Riot Ensemble, and a short opera composed in collaboration with Tête à Tête and the RCM Vocal & Opera Department.
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Aoife Beaumont
Assistant Director
Aoife Beaumont
Assistant Director
Aoife is Participation Manager at Arcola Theatre and has a background in directing for community theatre with companies such as Almeida Theatre, The Old Vic, White City Theatre Theatre Project and Youth Realities. Assistant Director credits include; Crocodile Fever (Arcola Theatre).
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Amy Mitchell
Production Manager
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Bessy Mo
Costume Supervisor
Bessy Mo
Costume Supervisor
Bessy Mo trained in Costume at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating in 2025.
Theatre: Ukraine Unbroken, Lowest of the Low, Rinaldo (Arcola), Henry V (Bristol Old Vic), A Very Expensive Poison (Circomedia), Some People Talk About Violence, Wasted (Wardrobe Theatre), This House (Tobacco Factory), Otherland (Placement – Almeida), Ballet Shoes (Placement – National Theatre).
Film, TV and Commercial: Barbie (Warner Bros), Hamnet (Focus Features), Lincoln in the Bardo (Unspeakably Beautiful Productions), Eurovision Commercial (BBC), Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew (Netflix), The Roots Manoeuvre (Amazon MGM), Serenade – Short (Whitney-Leggatt Productions).
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Rosie Fleming
Stage Manager (on Book)
Rosie Fleming
Stage Manager (on Book)
Rosie has recently graduated from RADA. Recent productions include After Miss Julie (Park Theatre), Dear Jack, Dear Louise and Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson Apt 2B. (Arcola Theatre), The Hungry Bowl (Rose Theatre), Expendable (Royal Court Theatre), All’s Well That Ends Well, Journey’s End, Playing the Victim, Gundog, Anatomy of a Suicide, Mirandolina, Light Falls (RADA).
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Ryan Denton
Assistant Stage Manager
Ryan Denton
Assistant Stage Manager
Ryan is a stage manager and creative with experience across a range of theatrical roles, dedicated to delivering impactful live experiences and productions. Alongside his stage management work, Ryan is the proud co-founder of Ordinary Stories Theatre CIC, a theatre company committed to providing creative opportunities in rural communities across the UK.
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Maya Bora Yeşil
Illustrator and Visual Artist
Maya Bora Yeşil
Illustrator and Visual Artist
Maya Bora is an award-winning illustrator and visual artist whose practice focuses on illustration, children’s publishing and exhibition-based work.
She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Dokuz Eylül University. Her augmented reality children’s book project received the Best Thesis Award and won second prize at the IX International Design Education Forum in Ukraine.
She has illustrated 12 children’s books published internationally, as well as a comic book published in the United States.
With support from TÜBİTAK’s BiGG Entrepreneurship Programme, she founded Megami and, as art director, developed Okku, a platform enabling artists to create and publish interactive digital books.
Her practice also includes selected interdisciplinary collaborations. She contributed to the poster and set design of A New Year’s Dream (Bir Yılbaşı Rüyası), staged in İzmir. For Arcola Theatre’s production of The Master Builder, she designed, produced and hand-painted scale models for the set.
Alongside her solo exhibitions, Maya collaborates with institutions on artistic and social projects. She also organises collective exhibitions raising awareness of street animals and continues to work internationally as an independent illustrator and visual artist.
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Yağmur Karabacak
Design Placement
Yağmur Karabacak
Design Placement
Yağmur Karabacak is an architect and theatre designer currently pursuing an MA in Theatre and Performance Design at Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London. With a strong foundation in architectural design, her practice explores the intersection of spatial dynamics, scenography, and movement within performance environments. Driven by an interest in contemporary movement and dance, her approach explores how physical performance shapes scenographic space, bridging structural precision with narrative design.
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Julia Berman
Directing Placement
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Joel Allison
Mix Engineer
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Venus Raven
Production LX
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Beril Yavuz
LX Programmer
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David Gregory
Production Carpenter
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Adam Bottomley Creative
Production Carpenter
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Jodie Freeman, Earth and Ivy Ltd
Scenic Installation
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Lee Elston
Production Crew
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Frank Maguire
Production Crew
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Michael D Whyte
Set Electrics
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With thanks to
Stu Holden at Wicked London and Rhodri Evans at the Young Vic
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Rob Kelly
Casting Director
Rob Kelly
Casting Director
Rob Kelly is an Emmy nominated London based Casting Director working across theatre, film and television. Known for championing exceptional new talent alongside established performers.
Television includes: Geek Girl (Netflix), Curfew (Paramount+), Phoenix Rise (BBC Three), The Quiet Hour, Wild, The Village Idiot, The Intruder, Never Too Late (Channel 5), Free Rein (Netflix), Gangsta Granny Strikes Again (BBC), The Drowning (Netflix), Pandora (The CW), Whitstable Pearl (AMC), Dodger (BBC), Hard Cell (Netflix)
Film Includes: Ace (Netflix), Fing! (Sky), How to Date Billy Walsh (Amazon MGM Studios), Robin and the Hoods (Sky), Something in the Water (StudioCanal), This Is Christmas (Sky)
Theatre includes: Hadestown (West End & UK Tour), Who Killed Marilyn (West End), Allegra (West End), Private Jones (Southwark Playhouse), The Jonathan Larson Project (Southwark Playhouse), Little Shop of Horrors (Liverpool Playhouse & Hope Mill Theatre), Driving Miss Daisy (York Theatre Royal), Most Favoured and This Bitter Earth (Soho Theatre)
www.robkellycasting.com
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Photo by Barry McCall, artwork by Steph Pyne.