Exit the King

National Theatre – 2018

The brief: Ionesco absurdist tragi-comedy starts with King Bérenger learning he’s going to die at the end of the play. He is in denial, and the members of his court try to help him accept his fate. Director Patrick Marber brief was to position the production as a comedy and to feature the whole cast

I came up with the idea to represent the members of the court as a deck of cards. We shot the actors individually and I created the final image by combining their portraits with hand-drawn elements, vector shapes, and scanned textures. The vintage look was inspired by the 1920s/1930s European backdrop and suggests the faded grandeur of the King’s crumbling kingdom.

Photography by Jay Brooks
Animation by Elliot Wilkinson