Aristocrats, Donmar Warehouse

The titular Aristocrats of Brian Friel's 1979 play aren't quite the debonair landed gentry you might expect. The O'Donnell children return to their ancestral home, the grand Ballybeg Hall, to find that the age of fancy parties and visiting dignitaries is over.

What's left is a Chekovian sense of decay as a new generation negotiate the relics of their past. Aristocrats explores the changing nature of class and family against a backdrop of Catholicism and bombings in Derry.

Director Lyndsey Turner returns to the Donmar and to the work of Brian Friel after an acclaimed 2016 revival of Friel's Faith Healer. 40 years since Aristocrats premiered, this new production shows that our interest in Irish history is still going strong, following on from Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman and the National Theatre's production of Translations, Brian Friel's most famous play.

Turner has gathered a talented team of creatives for this revival, including visionary set designer Es Devlin (Girls and Boys, Royal Court) and Irish actors Elaine Cassidy and Ciaran McIntyre.

Tickets for Aristocrats at the Donmar Warehouse go on general sale at 10am on Wednesday 9 May.