Following an award-winning Northern tour, Paul Herzberg’s acclaimed new play, The Moth, receives its London premiere at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre for a strictly limited four-week season, playing 27 October to 21 November 2026.
A chance meeting on a train between John, a Black British journalist, and Marius, a White South African ex-soldier, sets in motion an escalating chain of events that that reshapes their lives over the next thirty years – as John withholds forgiveness and Marius becomes increasingly obsessed with seeking it.
Finally, before the nation’s television cameras, they face each other to confront the past and lay bare their conflicting truths.
Inspired by a true story, The Moth is a gripping new play that speaks directly to our times – a psychological thriller of memory, race, war, trauma, the legacy of Apartheid and the limits of forgiveness…
Originally developed from a ten-minute video monologue which has since had over 30,000 views, it was selected for 26 festivals across the world, winning the Kwanzaa Film Festival Best Monologue Award in New York City. The stage version took the North by storm on tour in 2025, playing to packed houses at venues including Live Theatre Newcastle, the Lowry Salford and Shakespeare North in Liverpool, it received rave reviews, and won actor Micky Cochrane the award for Best Performance at the North-East Culture Theatre Awards for his portrayal of Marius.
The Moth includes a brief cameo by Bridgerton star, Adjoa Andoh as the voice of John Josana’s mother, Joy.
Playwright Paul Herzberg drew on his South African background where he was conscripted into the army during the Angolan Border War, leaving the country thereafter. His lived experience of Apartheid and its reverberations to the present day drive the narrative. “The Moth looks at racism through the eyes of two men in the present, who are forced to confront their troubled past after a chance encounter. It explores the nature of forgiveness: What it really is; Who has the right to confer it; Whether it has any meaning in the context of human progress.”
Director Jake Murray says “I was astonished at the response to the play as it toured northern England. Audiences were hungry to be pulled into the world of these two men and wanted to talk about how it related to the present state of our world. It often incited fiery and stimulating discussion after a performance. I’m thrilled we’re now sharing it with London audiences.”
The cast is:
Micky Cochrane | Marius Muller
Theatre includes Carrying David (Newcastle Theatre Royal, North East Tour, London and Northern Ireland), Reiver – Tales From The Borders (Northern Tour), I, Daniel Blake (UK Tour for Northern Stage), The Pitmen Painters (Oldham Coliseum) and A Nightingale Sang (Live Theatre, Newcastle).
Television includes George Gently, The Dumping Ground and Man Down.
Faz Singhateh | John Josana
Trained at Guildhall School of Speech and Drama.
Theatre Includes The Night of the Iguana (Noël Coward Theatre), ear for eye (Royal Court Theatre), King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Raisin in the Sun (The Young Vic), Romeo and Juliet and Strike in On My Birthday (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Jesus Hopped the A Train (Assembly Rooms Theatre, Durham and HOME, Manchester), Playland (Northern Tour) and Othello (Northern Tour).
Television includes Coronation Street, Waterloo Road, Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.
Andy Jordan Productions returns to the Finborough Theatre where it presented the acclaimed Lies Where It Falls. Concentrating on new writing, its 58 previous productions include Strindberg’s Women, co-produced with Elysium Theatre Company (Jermyn Street Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Madness (Edinburgh Festival), Born in the USA / Leaving Vietnam (Park Theatre and UK Tour), Tilly No-Body (Arcola Theatre), and Dreamscape (59E59 Street Theaters and SoHo Playhouse, New York and Omnibus Theatre).
