Linnea Berthelsen to make UK stage debut in DARKLING

Shehrazade Zafar-Arif 14 July, 2026, 10:58

Actors Touring Company and Bush Theatre have announced that Stranger Things' Linnea Berthelsen will make her UK stage debut in the world premiere of Titas Halder's Darkling, which opens at the Bush Theatre as part of its new season this autumn before going on tour.

Linnea Berthelsen. Photo by Chege Shots

Written by the multi-award-winning Titas Halder (Foal, Finborough), the current Associate Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse, and directed by Matthew Xia (Tambo & Bones, ATC / Stratford East), this powerful new play explores the impact of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, in which more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killing around 20,000 people. It follows a young girl growing up with her father and sister, in a home surrounded by nature. But suddenly the land around them begins to change, with a giant factory rising over their town. Then comes a night that tears apart everything she's ever known and loved.

Marking 42 years since the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, the production weaves memory and trauma into a visceral narrative that serves as a powerful indictment of corporate malpractice and confronts the systemic impact of industrialisation on poorer nations, raising urgent questions about environmental exploitation and the fight for justice in the global South.

Linnea Berthelson, best known for her breakout role as Kali Prasad in Netflix's Stranger Things, will star in this deeply poetic solo play. She expressed her excitement, calling the script "incredibly nuanced, human, and very alive." Xia also praised the play's "extraordinarily beautiful and poetic text", and Berthelson's "magnetic intensity" in the role, promising an exhilarating and moving artistic collaboration.

Darkling opens at the Bush Theatre on 5 September 2026, before embarking on a UK tour until 14 November.

Darkling Tickets