A-list stars line up for children's charity performance

Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting director Danny Boyle is to direct the fifth anniversary performance of The Children's Monologues at the Royal Court Theatre tomorrow (25 October). The play will assemble a stellar cast including Nicole Kidman, Benedict Cumberbatch and Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The play will dramatise the testimonies of young children growing up in Rammulotsi, a small rural township in the Free State province of South Africa. Invited to describe a day that they will never forget, the Monologues will retell the stories of young people expressing personal experiences in their own words, in the native Sesotho language.

The cast for the London production will include Kidman, Cumberbatch, Ejiofor, James McAvoy, Kit Harington, Josh Hartnett, Zawe Ashton, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alfie Allen, Daniel Kaluuya, Rose Leslie, Wunmi Mosaku, Nazanin Boniadi, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Thewlis.
The monologues have been adapted for the stage by writers including James Graham, Tanika Gupta MBE, Sir David Hare, Amy Jephta and Neil LaBute.

The performance will raise money for Dramatic Need, a charity that works with vulnerable children in Rwanda and South Africa and uses the arts to encourage creativity. Proceeds from the performance will go towards building a new arts centre in the Rammulotsi township.

In South Africa the monologues will be performed by the children themselves on the same night.
Amber Sainsbury, founder of Dramatic Need, has organised the monologue project since 2010.

She said her charity aims to promote "creative expression as a tool for conflict resolution, social development, gender empowerment and for the communication of positive health messages".