Titas Halder's play about the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984, with Linnea Berthelsen, marking her UK stage debut.
Darkling is running at the Bush Theatre from 5 September to 24 October 2026, a co-production between the Bush and the Actors Touring Company. It's Titas Halder's play about the human cost of environmental catastrophe, set in Bhopal, India, in 1984. The story follows a young girl growing up with her father and sister as a giant factory rises over their town, until a single night tears everything apart. It draws on the real events of the Bhopal gas disaster, often called India's Chernobyl, and is billed as a lyrical, damning epic.
Directing is Olivier Award winner Matthew Xia, and the production marks the UK stage debut of Danish actress Linnea Berthelsen, best known as Kali in Netflix's Stranger Things and as Jen in Alex Garland's Devs. Critics have described the show as ferocious, brutal and damning. The run includes relaxed, captioned and audio-described performances, and the production will tour the UK afterwards, stopping at Birmingham Rep, The North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford and HOME in Manchester.
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It's supported by Arts Council England, Cockayne Grants for the Arts, the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the John Ellerman Foundation and the Wates Foundation. Tickets are £15 to £35, and the Bush is at 7 Uxbridge Road, Shepherd's Bush, W12 8LJ. Performances run Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:30pm, with Wednesday and Saturday having both a 2:30pm and a 7:30pm showing.
