The Pelicot Trial on Stage: London One-Night Performance Explained
The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot will be performed in London for one night only in November. The production runs four hours. It will play at London County Hall, the home of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution. The London performance is presented by the Young Vic, whose artistic director and co-chief executive is Nadia Fall. The Guardian
The play is based on the trial of the men who drugged and raped Gisèle Pelicot. It was created by Milo Rau and Servane Dècle. The London cast will comprise 27 actors.
It is staged as a night of readings featuring examinations, pleas and commentaries surrounding the case. The form is close to a court record read aloud, with context added. Rau and Dècle collaborated with the Pelicot family's lawyers, the court, psychological experts, legal commentators, witnesses and feminist organisations to recount it. The work was produced by the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen), with the Festival d'Avignon cooperating in the production. Nastasia Griese served as dramaturgy and production assistant, dramaturgy meaning the research and shaping of the material, with Séphora Haymann and Hinda Abdelaoui as narrators. Festival d'Avignon
Gisèle Pelicot waived her right to anonymity, meaning she chose to be named in public, to ensure a public trial of her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot. Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December 2024. Guilty verdicts were returned for all 51 accused men. The Guardian
The case was the largest rape trial in French history. A rift later emerged between Gisèle Pelicot and her eldest children after the trial that made her an icon. BBC Only one of the 51 convicted men appealed his guilty verdict, asking a higher court to review it. Gisèle Pelicot returned to court on Monday, October 6 for the appeal trial against the sole appellant. Reuters
The production has toured in at least 15 different countries. It has been performed in New York City and in Avignon, France. Gisèle Pelicot attended a performance in New York. The Avignon staging was set inside a medieval convent, not far from the courthouse where her trial had taken place six months earlier. The New York Times It was included in the Festival d'Avignon Edition 2025 programme. During the proceedings from which it draws, Gisèle Pelicot said "Shame must change sides". Festival d'Avignon
The broader context here is the circulation of a courtroom record beyond the courtroom. A public trial creates a transcript, testimony and verdicts. A restaging selects from that material and places it before a different audience, under different rules. The questions to weigh are practical. Who speaks, in what order, and with what authority. What is read verbatim and what is framed as commentary. How a production that moves across 15 countries holds its relation to the lawyers, experts, witnesses and organisations involved in its making, and to the woman at its centre who chose a public process and then watched that process travel.
