Lily Allen to star in new version of Hedda Gabler ‘absolutely for now’

Lily Allen at the opening night of The Pillowman in 2023. Photograph: Alan Chapman/Dave M Benett/Getty Images

Lily Allen is to play Hedda Gabler in a new version of Henrik Ibsen’s classic at Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio next summer.

The production will see the actor and singer reunite with Matthew Dunster, who directed Allen in her West End theatre debut in the supernatural thriller 2:22: A Ghost Story in 2021 and her subsequent role as a writer held prisoner in The Pillowman in 2023.

Allen said she was thrilled to be playing Hedda Gabler in the intimacy of the Ustinov, which has a capacity of just 126. Dunster, who will write and direct, said: “Lily and I were talking about women we knew that were trapped in relationships where men had all the power, and how these 21st-century women were still being controlled and destroyed. The conversation turned to plays where we could explore those ideas. We thought of Hedda Gabler and the connections were obvious, exciting and devastating.” He said their version of the tragedy, about the despair and desire of a woman in a stifling marriage, would be “absolutely for now”.

Hedda will run from 25 July to 23 August 2025 and follows a string of recent reimaginings of the play. Last year, Reading Rep staged Harriet Madeley’s queer adaptation while the Rose theatre and Norwegian Ibsen Company co-produced Nina Segal’s Shooting Hedda Gabler, in which a film crew is making a movie adaptation of the play. This summer, Patrick Marber’s new version will be performed at the Stratford festival in Canada.

This month sees the return of 2:22: A Ghost Story to the West End with a new cast including Stacey Dooley in the role originated by Allen of a woman who believes her new home is haunted. It is the seventh West End season for Danny Robins’ chiller and will run concurrently with its UK tour.