CAST ANNOUNCED FOR OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS

Hampstead Theatre presents the world premiere of Stephen Brown’s play Occupational Hazards, which is based on Rory Stewart’s critically acclaimed memoir of the same name. Directed by Simon Godwin, this new play tells an extraordinary story about the moral conflicts, the dangers and the comic absurdities inherent in any foreign occupation. Henry Lloyd-Hughes will play the role of Rory having last been seen at Hampstead Theatre in Nina Raine’s Tiger Country in 2011.

The cast also includes Nezar Alderazi, Waj Ali, Silas Carson, Amy Cudden, Vangelis Christodoulou, Vincent Ebrahim, Aishya Hart, John Mackay and Johndeep More.

September 2003. Rory Stewart, a thirty year old former British diplomat is posted to serve as governor in a province of the newly liberated Iraq. His job is to help build a new civil society at peace with itself and its neighbours - an ambitious mission, admittedly, but outperforming Saddam should surely not prove too difficult… 

Yet, freedom from repressive tyranny has allowed centuries of tribal conflict, sectarian tension and ethnic division to burst into the open once more.  These sharp local realities plunge Stewart into a dangerous whirlpool of political intrigue in which the double-dealing of opposing interest groups creates intensifying confusion and chaos.  As pressure for a settlement mounts from all sides he comes to realise that all politics is indeed local, and that Washington may have to rethink its dreams of Iraqi democracy.

Henry Lloyd-Hughes plays Rory Stewart. His theatre credits include NSFW (Royal Court), Posh (The Duke of York’s Theatre and Royal Court), The Changeling (Young Vic), Punk Rock (Lyric Hammersmith), Rope (Almeida Theatre), Tiger Country (Hampstead Theatre) and The Miracle (National Theatre). Television credits include Indian Summers, The Cricklewood Greats, Parades End, The Inbetweeners, Murphy’s Law, Ambassadors, The Rotters’ Club, Miliband of Brothers and Shirley. Film credits include Now You See Me 2, Madame Bovary, Man Up, Hello Carter, Anna Karenina, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, The Inbetweeners Movie, Weekender, Dimensions, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Unrelated.

Nezar Alderazi plays Ahmed. His theatre credits include Waiting for Godot (Estragon, Falaki Theatre), Three Sisters (Andrei, Cairo), Enter Queen Lear (Drayton Arms), Fear and Misery in the Third Reich (Tristan Bates Theatre) and Peer Gynt (Cockpit). His television credits include Al Jami’aa and War Machine.

Waj Ali plays Musab. His theatre credits include The Rest of your Life,Nahda – four visions of an Arab awakening (Bush theatre), Clothes Swap Theatre Party (Derby theatre), Suffering in Sirens (Greenwich theatre) and A is for Ali (Old Red Lion theatre). Television credits include The Attack, Tyrant, Da Vincis Demons and War on Drugs. Film credits include Red 2, Good People, 90 minutes and The Chop.

Silas Carson plays Karim. His theatre credits include Half Life (Theatre Royal Bath), Drawing The Line (Hampstead Theatre), The Comedy of Errors (National Theatre), Ruined, Macbeth (Almeida Theatre), Arabian Nights (Royal Shakespeare Company), Much Ado About Nothing (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Baghdad Wedding (Soho Theatre), A View From The Bridge (Sheffield Crucible), A Doll’s House (Young Vic), Romeo and Juliet (Lyric Hammersmith) and Twelfth Night (Playhouse Theatre). Television credits include Eastenders, New Blood, Unforgotten, DCI Banks, Indian Summers, The Casual Vacancy, The 'C' Word, Glue, Transporter, Holby City, How Not to Live Your Life, The Philanthropist, Hunter, Bonekickers and Waterloo Road. Film credits include Postcards From London, Miss You Already, Blood Cells, Dying of the Light, Locke, It's A Lot, Cleanskin, Star Wars-Revenge Of The Sith and Star Wars - Attack Of The Clones.

Amy Cudden plays JD. Her recent theatre credits include After Miss Julie (Bath Theatre Royal/Tour). Other theatre credits include Tonight at 8.30 (The Nuffield Theatre), One Man, Two Guvnors (Haymarket Theatre), The Village Bike (Sheffield Crucible), Shallow Slumber (Soho Theatre) and Plasticine (Southwark Playhouse).Television credits include Holby City, Doctors, Phoneshop, Doctor Who, Vera, The Bill, Casualty and Crimson Knights. Film credits include Deep Sleep, 4.48 Psychosis and Gone Far Away.

Vangelis Christodoulou plays Seyyed Ismail and Rifat. His television and film credits include Casualty, Da Vinci's Demons, The Ellington Kid, and Papadopoulos & Sons.

Vincent Ebrahim plays Abu Rashid and Khaled. His theatre credits include Dara, Behind The Beautiful Forevers (National Theatre), The Djinns of Eidgah (Royal Court), The Empress, Real Dreams, The Danton Affair (RSC), Nathan The Wise (Hampstead Theatre), Credible Witness (Royal Court Upstairs), Ramayana (Birmingham Rep and National Theatre), Tartuffe, Little Clay Cart and Fanshen (National Theatre). Television credits include Hoff The Record, Hollyoaks, Doctors, The Old Guys, Compulsion, The Kumars At Number 42, New Street Law, After You’ve Gone, Meet The Magoons, The Lenny Henry Show, Bedtime and Clocking Off. Film credits include Allied, The Physician, Material and The Curse of the Wererabbit.

Aishya Hart plays Rana. Her television and film credits include Line Of Duty, New Blood, Atlantis, Honour and Djinn. Her radio credits include BBC Radio 4’s Flood Minimum, Tumanbay and The Reluctant Spy.

John Mackay plays The Colonel and Bremner. His recent theatre credits include The Sewing Group (Royal Court Theatre) and Wild (Hampstead Theatre). Other theatre credits include Measure For Measure (Young Vic), Oresteia (Almeida), Drawing the Line, 55 Days (Hampstead Theatre), Richard III (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory), Going Dark (Young Vic/ Sound & Fury), Little Eagles, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, The Grainstore, The Histories, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Pilate, Macbeth, Hamlet (RSC), Six Characters In Search Of An Author (Headlong), Dark Earth (Traverse) and All My Sons (York Theatre Royal). Television credits include Hollow Crown II, The Honourable Woman, Holby City, Law and Order; The Great Transatlantic Cable, Doc Martin, Casualty and Trial & Retribution III.

Johndeep More plays Seyyed Hassan. His theatre credits include The Kite Runner (Wyndham’s) and East is East (The Birmingham Rep and UK tour). Film credits include Blue Line and Internal. 

Stephen Brown scripted Filter Theatre’s sell-out hit Faster (BAC, London/Lyric Studio, London/UK tour/Frankfurt/59E59 Theater, New York).  His play, Future Me premiered at Theatre503 in London to wide acclaim, toured the UK and had US productions in Berkeley, CA and at the Public Theater, New York. The script is published by Oberon Books. Other work includes co-scripting Does My Society Look Big in This? at Bristol Old Vic, with Tom Morris and dramaturgy on Lost Dog’s Salvage (Corn Exchange Newbury / The Laban Centre / The Place). He has worked as a critic and journalist in print and on radio and as a book editor and translator.  He was publisher of the London-based political magazine Prospect. Stephen is currently under commission to the National Theatre and is developing a show with Bristol Old Vic.

Before being elected as Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border in 2010, Rory Stewart worked in foreign affairs with a particular focus on military intervention and international development. After a brief period as an infantry officer in the British Army he joined the UK Diplomatic Service, serving overseas in Jakarta, as British representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo crisis, and ‎as the coalition Deputy-Governor of two provinces in the Marsh Arab region of Southern Iraq following the Iraq intervention of 2003; he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his work in Iraq. On leave from the Foreign Service he walked for 21 months crossing Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal, staying in 500 village houses on the journey. He has written three books: The Places in Between, a New York Times bestseller, which describes his walk across Afghanistan in the winter of 2001-2002, Occupational Hazards, which describes his time as an administrator in Southern Iraq, and Can Intervention Work? with Gerald Knaus, an essay on military intervention. He has presented three BBC television documentaries: In Search of Lawrence of Arabia, Afghanistan: The Great Game, and Border Country: The Story of Britain’s Lost Middleland. Today, Rory is Minister of State at the Department for International Development (DFID) having previously been Minister for the Environment and Rural Affairs at DEFRA. After the devastating floods of December 2015 – January 2016, Rory was appointed as Flood Envoy for Cumbria and Lancashire, overseeing recovery efforts, and was Chair of the Cumbria Floods Partnership. Prior to becoming a Minister in 2015, he served for four years on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and in 2014 was elected Chair of the Defence Select Committee by all parties in parliament as the youngest ever Select Committee chair.

Simon Godwin is an Associate Director at the National Theatre, where he has directed Twelfth Night, Sunset at the Villa Thalia, The Beaux Stratagem, Man and Superman and Strange Interlude. At the Royal Court, his work includes Routes, If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep, NSFW, The Witness, Goodbye to All That, The Acid Test and Wanderlust. For Bristol Old Vic, The Little Mermaid, Krapp’s Last Tape, A Kind of Alaska, Faith Healer and Far Away. For the RSC: Hamlet and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Other theatre Includes: The Cherry Orchard (Roundabout, New York), Richard II (Shakespeare’s Globe), Regeneration (Royal & Derngate and tour), Candida (Theatre Royal Bath), Krapp’s Last Tape/A Kind Of Alaska, Faith Healer, and Far Away (Bristol Old Vic), The Winter’s Tale (Headlong with Nuffield Theatre & Schtanhaus/UK tour), All the Little Things We Crushed (Almeida Projects), The Country (Tabard), The Seagull, Habeas Corpus, Relatively Speaking (Royal & Derngate Theatres, Northampton), Quartermaine’s Terms (Royal & Derngate Theatres/Salisbury Playhouse), Mister Heracles (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Romeo & Juliet (Cambridge Arts), All’s Well That Ends Well (Straydogs/UK tour) and Eurydice (Straydogs, BAC/Trafalgar Studios).

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