The White Guard

Howard Davies directs The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov, in a new version by Andrew Upton.

The cast includes Pip Carter, Paul Higgins, Conleth Hill and Justine Mitchell.

Andrew Upton's vigorous new version of Mikhail Bulgakov's rarely performed masterpiece, unrivalled in its depiction of the near-farcical mayhem of civil war across a vast and vivid canvas, follows Howard Davies's productions of the Russian epics Burnt by the Sun and Philistines.

In Kiev during the Russian civil war, the Turbin household is sanctuary to a ragtag, close-knit crowd presided over by the beautiful Lena. As her brothers prepare to fight for the White Guard, friends charge in from the riotous streets amidst an atmosphere of heady chaos, quaffing vodka, keeling over, declaiming, taking baths, playing guitar, falling in love. But the new regime is poised and in its brutal triumph lies destruction for the Turbins and their world.