Dr Semmelweis plays at Harold Pinter Theatre 29 June – 7 October 2023
Mark Rylance returns to the West End this summer as one of medicine’s greatest pioneers, maverick Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis – the man whose research could save many millions of mothers’ lives. Dr Semmelweis opening at the Harold Pinter Theatre on 29 June, and running until Saturday 7 October. The critically acclaimed Bristol Old Vic production, directed by Tom Morris, opened in 2022, and sees Rylance reprise the title role.
With preview tickets from £10 and over 350 tickets a week at £25 or less, the production will play for a strictly limited 14-week run.
“We are the doctors of the modern age. We are marching into battle.”
But what good is a discovery when it falls on deaf ears?
In Vienna, a city of artistic and scientific revolution, thousands of women are still dying in childbirth each and every year. Only Dr Semmelweis can see the invisible killer at work, but to stop it, he must convince his colleagues to admit culpability and approve change.
Damned by an establishment that questions his methods, his motives and even his sanity, Semmelweis is haunted by the women he has failed to save. Can he finally convince the greatest doctors of 19th century Europe to accept his argument – and what will it cost him to make an almost impossible case?
Following a “smash hit” (Mail on Sunday), sold-out run at Bristol Old Vic, this “compelling new drama” (The Telegraph) directed by Tom Morris, featuring live music by Adrian Sutton and original choreography by Antonia Franceschi of Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, comes to the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End for a strictly limited run this summer.