An ensemble cast will take on a variety of roles in five plays that make up Ukraine Unbroken, which takes place at London’s Arcola Theatre from February 2026.
Daniel Betts, Ian Bonar, Clare Holman, David Michaels, Clara Read and Jade Williams will star in the show, which charts 12 turbulent years of modern Ukrainian history from the Maidan protests of 2014 to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and beyond.
Across five plays by British and Ukrainian writers including David Edgar, David Greig and Natalka Vorozhbit, audiences will explore the resilience of a nation determined to remain free. It is conceived by Nicolas Kent.
Performed with live Ukrainian music from Mariia Petrovska and woven through with headlines and voices from the front line, Ukraine Unbroken is described as a portrait of resistance and strength in a powerful cycle of short plays about courage, truth and survival in the face of tyranny.
THE PLAYS
ACT 1: DEMONSTRATIONS & INVASIONS
ALWAYS – JONATHAN MYERSON
- In Always by Jonathan Myerson, a married couple is held hostage inside Hotel Ukraina in 2014 as their son protests in Maidan Square below.
FIVE DAY WAR – DAVID EDGAR
- David Edgar takes a darkly comic and sinister look at the ambition and delusion of Russia’s 2022 “Special Military Operation” – an invasion that was not an invasion and a war that was not a war.
ACT 2: WAR
THREE MATES – NATALKA VOROZHBIT
- Natalka Vorozhbit explores the shame of survival in Three Mates, translated by Sasha Dugdale – a darkly humorous confession from a Ukrainian man in hiding from conscription, reflecting on the different paths through the war he and his friends have taken.
WRETCHED THINGS – DAVID GREIG
- David Greig’s Wretched Things tells a story of Ukrainian front-line troops who have captured a wounded North Korean soldier and must decide whether to risk their own lives to save his.
TAKEN – CAT GOSCOVITCH
- Cat Goscovitch confronts the harrowing reality of the 20,000 Ukrainian children stolen by Russia in Taken, which follows one mother’s search for her daughter through a world of propaganda and re-education, where both childhood and country are erased.
Ukraine Unbroken plays Arcola Theatre from February 26 – March 28, 2026. Tickets here.
Top image: Ukraine Unbroken artwork (image supplied)