Pip Williams bestseller The Bookbinder of Jericho bound for the stage
The team behind the blockbuster stage adaptation of Pip Williams’ bestselling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words is back for its follow-up, The Bookbinder of Jericho. Plus, a modern Greek tragedy starring Richard Roxburgh and Heather Mitchell joins the 2027 Adelaide Festival.
The Bookbinder of Jericho is one of two major upcoming productions revealed last night at Sydney Theatre Company’s 2027 program launch – with another South Australian play heading east in the new year.
A co-production by State Theatre Company South Australia and Sydney Theatre Company, the 2023 Pip Williams novel will be adapted for the stage by Adelaide playwright by Verity Laughton – who also turned Williams’ debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words into a homegrown box office hit.
Since premiering in Adelaide in 2023 with Tilda Cobham-Hervey in the starring role, The Dictionary of Lost Words has gone on to sell-out seasons in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, before returning to the Dunstan Playhouse for an encore season last year.
The Bookbinder of Jericho will receive its world premiere at the Dunstan Playhouse next September before making its way to Sydney in October, with many of the same team returning alongside Laughton including director Shannon Rush, set designer Jonathon Oxlade, costume designer Ailsa Paterson, sound designer Max Lyandvertm and original cast member Ksenja Logos.
The play was commissioned during Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Mitchell Butel’s tenure as head of State Theatre Company, and his successor Petra Kalive says The Bookbinder is a natural evolution for Williams’ and Laughton’s storytelling.
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“They have taken that theatrical language just a step further – it will live onstage so beautifully,” Kalive told InReview.
The Bookbinder of Jericho is a feminist coming of age drama set in the same literary world of Edwardian-era Oxford as its predecessor. Williams has said that the inspiration for the book came during a research trip to the Oxford University Press Museum, where she saw a short 1925 film that depicted the labour-intensive process of book-binding.
Williams was struck by the black-and-white footage of a workforce dominated by women – and the ‘dance-like’ movements as they folded, sorted and sewed the thousands of pages pumped out by the factory.
“There’s this gorgeous piece of footage of this woman, and to me it looks so graceful as she walks along the gathering bench and gathers the sections into her arm,” Williams told InReview in 2023. “You realise she’s done this thousands of times and she’s developed a kind of movement that just flows.”
“And I thought then, ‘I wonder if she ever reads it?’”
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While The Dictionary of Lost Words follows the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary from the perspective of Esme, the fictional daughter of one of the dictionary’s co-creators, The Bookbinder of Jericho picks up the story of Peggy, a young woman who works as a bookbinder by day, while surreptitiously reading – and dreaming of academia – by night. Peggy and her twin sister Maude will be played by newcomers Melissa Kahraman and Billie-Rose Russell.
Fans of Williams’ novels won’t have to wait until next year to revisit her literary universe, however, with her latest novel The German Ward set to be published on September 29.
The Sydney Theatre Company announcement also revealed another theatrical set piece for next year’s Adelaide Festival program, with Richard Roxburgh and Heather Mitchell returning to Adelaide in March to star in a contemporary adaptation of the Greek tragedy Oedipus by British dramaturg Robert Icke.
Retooling the Sophocles classic as a modern political drama, Icke’s Oedipus has already racked up Olivier and Tony Awards for its Broadway and West End runs, with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville taking the leads. It’s the latest Icke play to feature prominently in the festival, with his Juliet Stevenson-starring drama The Doctor appearing in the 2020 program.
“I’m thrilled that, after the success of The Doctor at Adelaide Festival back in 2020, we’re returning to Australia with Oedipus,” Icke says. “What makes this particularly exciting is that this time, we’ll be creating an Australian version of the production, made with an extraordinary company of actors. I can’t wait to see what audiences there make of Oedipus.”
Oedpius will be performed at the Festival Theatre from March 10-14 2027 as part of the 2027 Adelaide Festival. It’s the third show to be announced for next year’s festival, joining Barrie Kosky’s K and a Romeo Castellucci production of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle.
Sydney Theatre Company also confirmed Jacob Boehme’s Logan St, which premiered at the Space Theatre in July, will also travel to Sydney in February 2027 for a month-long season at Wharf 1 Theatre. Kalive says Logan St’s second life, and the success of The Dictionary of Lost Words, speaks to the strength of South Australia’s theatrical sector.
“It’s absolutely demonstrated that State Theatre Company punches above its weight, and we have amazing creatives here as well – and those creatives need to be seen all over Australia.”
State Theatre Company South Australia will reveal its full 2026 program on September 30. A waitlist for The Bookbinder of Jericho’s Adelaide season will open shortly.
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