Two lovers and two siblings.
How far are they prepared to go to prove their devotion? And will their love survive when subjected to the most extreme violence?
Recommended for ages 16+.
Thematic triggers:
This production includes prolonged nudity, torture, mutilation, murder, sex, incest, violence including sexual violence, forced eating, suicide including hanging, drug abuse and drugging, gender reassignment surgery as well as homophobic and misogynistic language, needles and blood.
Tue 21 Jul – Sat 29 Aug 2026
Almeida Theater
Almeida Street,
London N1 1TA
In Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Cleansed at the Almeida Theatre, almost the entire main cast experiences prolonged, full-frontal nudity. Written by Sarah Kane, the script explicitly uses nudity, stripping, and body horror as central metaphors for vulnerability, trauma, and stripping away the human ego.
The specific characters and actors who perform nude in the production include:
The Main Characters Involved in Nudity
- Grace & Graham: Played by Pearl Chanda and Jack Riddiford. Grace enters the institution to claim the clothes of her dead brother, Graham. As she attempts to biologically “become” him through a forced, graphic gender-reassignment storyline, both characters are subjected to full nudity to show the physical trials of her transformation.
- Carl & Rod: Played by Luke Cinque-White and Parth Thakerar. As a gay couple subjected to violent “deprogramming” and systemic torture by the institution, their scenes of sexual intimacy, vulnerability, and physical mutilation involve prolonged, full-frontal male nudity.
- Robin: Played by Stuart Thompson. In a highly symbolic scene, the childlike Robin strips entirely naked to give his own clothes to Grace, spending a portion of the play completely exposed.
- The Woman (The Peepshow Dancer): Played by Lizzy Connolly. She performs highly explicit, revealing, and vulnerable acts inside a portable booth as part of her interactions with the torturer, Tinker.
I just saw this and it is actively wrong. There is no prolonged full frontal nudity, in fact the only person who gets naked on stage is the lead actress. Very misleading post.
The guy who plays robin does strip in the beginning but is completely covered the entire time.
The man who plays Graham also strips but is covered by a wall nearly the full time.
Rod and Carl are clothed the entire time.
Not only was there no male nudity on stage, but the play was actively bad. Would not reccomend.
I saw the play in a production in Munich; unfortunately, that was 15 years ago now. Two scenes have really stuck in my memory. Firstly, when the actor Christian Higer, playing Rod, stripped completely naked on stage. He unbuttoned his shirt and his upper body was completely covered in dark hair. When he turned round, you could see that his back was also completely hairy. When he took off his underpants, his circumcised penis came into view – naturally also nestled in a lush bush of hair.
The other actor was Herbert Schäfer: he is less hairy than Higer, but also had very thick, natural pubic hair. He had an intense love scene with a female colleague, and you could see his penis repeatedly touching and rubbing against her body. However, it remained flaccid.