Doctor Foster and Vigil star Suranne Jones joins An Oak Tree, the play she must perform without ever reading it

Most plays are built to protect the actor from surprise. An Oak Tree is built to remove that protection entirely. Tim Crouch plays a stage hypnotist; opposite him stands a grieving father, and the performer cast in that role has never read the script, never rehearsed a scene and has no idea where the story goes. Crouch feeds the lines and directions live, in front of the audience. The father’s disorientation is not acted. It is simply true, and the play’s argument about grief and suggestion is built on that single, fragile fact.

That is the dare Suranne Jones has now accepted. One of British television’s most commanding leads, the star of Doctor Foster and Vigil joins the rotating cast of Francesca Moody Productions’ London revival, alongside Dónal Finn, currently playing James Moriarty in Guy Ritchie‘s Young Sherlock and known to fantasy audiences as Mat Cauthon in The Wheel of Time, and Tanya Reynolds, the Sex Education and Ted Lasso actor who earned an Olivier nomination for 1536.

The casting is sharper than a list of names suggests, because the play strips away what each of them is known for. Jones has built a career on control: Gemma Foster’s cold fury, DCI Amy Silva’s procedural grip. Here she will walk on without a single line prepared, handing the steering wheel to someone else. Finn arrives with the opposite muscle, a musical-theatre performer who won a Stalls to Stage award for his Orpheus in Hadestown in the West End, trained to hit rehearsed marks. Reynolds comes off the back of 1536, a tightly written ensemble piece that moved from the Almeida into the West End. None of that preparation will help them on the night, which is the whole design.

Street-level frontage of the St James Theatre on Palace Street, London, the venue now called The Other Palace — The Palace Street frontage in 2015, when the venue was still the St James Theatre, now The Other Palace. Photo: Alan Myers / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Since its premiere, Crouch’s play has been performed hundreds of times in more than 19 countries, and more than 350 performers have taken the unrehearsed role. The roll call is its own argument for the format: Frances McDormand, Geoffrey Rush, Peter Dinklage, Mike Myers, David Tennant, Jessie Buckley and Phoebe Waller-Bridge have all stepped into the father’s shoes blind.

Waller-Bridge is not a coincidental name. Francesca Moody’s company originated both Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, two Fringe shows that became global television, and its new season at The Other Palace is built on the same instinct: three productions that began at the Edinburgh Fringe, with An Oak Tree running beside Garry Starr’s Classic Penguins and Marcelo Dos Santos’s Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen. Every performance in the season holds back 20 tickets at £20.

The dates matter more than usual, because each guest plays once. Reynolds takes the evening performance on 24 October, Finn follows on 1 November, and Jones takes the final date of the run, 15 November. They join a previously announced line-up that includes Olivia Williams, Juliet Stevenson, Sacha Dhawan, Gemma Whelan, Bessie Carter and Hammed Animashaun. An Oak Tree plays The Other Palace in London from 7 October to 15 November 2026, with tickets on sale now.

A different guest every night, and one script only Crouch has read. For an actor as precise as Jones, that last date may be the least controlled hour of her stage career. That is exactly why it is worth watching.

Tags: Suranne Jones, An Oak Tree, Francesca Moody Productions, live theatre, The Other Palace, Tim Crouch