Robert Icke

Robert Icke is an English writer and theatre director. Born in Stockton-on-Tees to a non-theatrical family, he was taken to see a production of Richard III starring Kenneth Branagh as a teenager, which inspired him to take up writing and directing. He is perhaps most known for his productions of classic texts, where he searches for a return 'to the impulse of the original play, to clear away the accumulated dust of its performance history. So much of great drama was profoundly troubling when it was first done. The word radical actually means to go back to the root. They rioted at Ibsen’s A Doll’s House...Audiences shouldn’t be allowed to feel nothing.’

Contents

• On chekhov katie mitchell and robert icke in conversation almeida theatre london
• Robert icke on winning the critics circle best director award 2016
• Awards
• Selected credits
• References

His work, according to Megan Vaughan, 'is a sign that the UK’s once stuffy middle-class theatre culture is waking up to more exciting and less prescriptive techniques.'

He began his career as Artistic Director of the Arden Theatre Company (2003-2007), followed by a stint at the Swan Theatre Company (2005-2008). Between 2010 and 2013, he was Associate Director at Rupert Goold's company Headlong. He is now Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre.