• Featured in The Guardian’s best theatre to see in 2025

    Who knows what is good and what is evil? You’re only concerned with yourself. That’s the truth. But you’ll never really become a rhinoceros… you haven’t got the chops!

    A provincial town in France.

    Jean meets his friend Berenger for a drink, but things take an unexpected turn when a rhinoceros charges through the town square. After all, there are no rhinoceroses in France, right?

    Suddenly, one by one the townspeople are transforming into the thing they first feared. An epidemic has taken hold and rhinoceritis is spreading like wildfire, until there are almost no human beings left.

    Following his ★★★★★ (The Telegraph) production of The Chairs, Omar Elerian directs BAFTA nominee Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (Gangs of London; His House) in his new version of Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist satire about resisting conformity and holding onto what’s left of our humanity as we resist the rumbling power of the herd.

  • Eugène Ionesco - Writer

    Omar Elerian - Translator and Director

    Ana Inés Jabares-Pita - Set and Costume Designer

    Jackie Shemesh - Lighting Designer

    Elena Peña - Sound Designer

    Toby Sedgwick - Choreographer and Movement Director

    John Biddle - Musical Director and Original Music

    Robin Fisher - Video Content

    Amy Ball CDG - Casting Director

    Peter Todd - Costume Supervisor

    Georgia Murphy - Associate Director

    Anna Kelsey - Design Assistant

    Aija Pozemkovska - Design Placement

    Photography by Marc Brenner