New Rebus cast announced as best-selling book and TV show returns to the stage

Scottish actor Gray O’Brien has been cast in the title role for the return of Ian Rankin’s Rebus to the stage.

It comes off the back of the success of the best-selling book series’ return to TV with the BBC show earning plenty of praise.

Now Daniel Schumann and Lee Dean have announced that Rebus: A Game Called Malice will hit theatres across the country with O’Brien playing the lead role of Detective Inspector John Rebus.

The show is set at an Edinburgh mansion where a dinner party concludes with a murder mystery game and Rebus is in attendance as the game takes twists and turns and the guests all look to hide secrets of their own.

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Best known for his roles as Tony Gordon in Coronation Street and Richard McCaig in Casualty, O’Brien will be joined by Abigail Thaw and Billy Hartman in the show.

The 55-year-old has appeared on stage in the past with the likes of Catch Me If You Can and Educating Rita and now takes on the role of Rebus including in his home city of Glasgow later this year.

It will open at the Cambridge Arts Theatre on August 29 before embarking on a UK tour that starts in Edinburgh and finishes in Poole at the end of November.

Scottish fans of the show can see it in the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh from the 10th to the 14th September while it will also be performed at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen from the 16th to 21st, and then again in Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre from the 23rd to 27th of the same month.