A play telling the “harrowing” story of the Gisele Pelicot rape case will be performed in London at a one-off event at London County Hall, on the South Bank.

Ms Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, as well as allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade.

The 73-year-old, who waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse, said shame should fall on her abusers, not her.

Thirty actors and public figures will take part in the “documentary theatre” style performance, created from documents from the trial and psychiatric reports of the 51 men who were prosecuted.

The Pelicot Rape Trial created by Swiss director and playwright Milo Rau started as a stand-alone piece as part of the Festival d’Avignon, an arts festival in the town where the crimes took place.

The performance then travelled across cities in Europe, with only one show per location.

Milo Rau said: “It’s about disentangling the story from the couple Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot – turning it into a story that belongs to all of us and at the same time to none of us.”

In London, the piece is being put on at London County Hall, by the Young Vic Theatre, on 30 November.

The theatre’s website said the performance is a “profoundly affecting piece of documentary theatre, comprised of testimonies and written accounts from the trial, (which) pays tribute to the ordinary woman who opened the way to change”.

It added: “The Pelicot trial is undoubtedly the most publicised, discussed, and symbolic of our time.

“As a sociological study it shows that in a typical Western European city – the small town of Mazan in the south of France – perfectly ordinary men from all social classes and age groups are capable of perhaps the most extreme crime: the repeated rape of an unconscious woman.”

Fifty men were found guilty of rape or sexual offences after a three-and-a-half-month trial.

Young Vic Theatre’s artistic director and chief executive, Nadia Fall said: “Milo Rau’s extraordinary testimonial piece The Pelicot Trial breaks out beyond our theatre walls to County Hall; a piece of confronting event-theatre which bears witness to the harrowing story of Gisèle Pelicot.”

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