A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON

About the show

London, 2006. A brazen political assassination is carried out in broad daylight. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy, drinks green tea laced with radioactive poison. Subsequent investigations uncover a conspiracy generated from the very heart of the Russian government, and a murder probably approved by President Vladimir Putin. In this award-winning play by Lucy Prebble (Succession, Enron), based on investigative journalist Luke Harding's book, Litvinenko investigates his own death while his wife Marina quests for justice. With a dazzling mix of vaudeville, thriller, romance and tragedy, this imaginative drama deep dives into the terrifying world of the new Cold War. Winner: 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.