WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHERE: Old Red Lion Theatre
WHEN: 19/6 (matinee) runs to 25/6
Last year we saw former Labour leader Neil Kinnock in the audience watching an actor play him in the Arcola Theatre production of Gareth Thomas story Crouch Touch Pause Engage.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: Playhouse Theatre
WHEN: 17/6 runs to 29/10
Robert Icke won the 2016 best director Olivier for Oresteia and there’s much from that in this 2014 Almeida production which is back in the West End for another run.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: Almeida
WHEN: 10/6, press night 16/6 runs to 6/8
Director Rupert Goold’s inventive take on this Shakespeare classic revolves around a trench centre stage, beginning and concluding in the modern day Leicester car park where Richard III‘s body was recently found.
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHERE: Prince Edward Theatre
WHEN: 6/6, press night 15/6 booking to 11/2/17
Summer’s biggest blockbuster shows are arguably this very panto remake of the 1992 Disney musical and Harry Potter and The Cursed Child which open within days and a stone’s throw of each other in London’s West End.
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHERE: National Theatre (Lyttelton Theatre)
WHEN: 4/6, press night 8/6 runs to 17/8
Written in 1952 the subject matter of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea seems daring even now.
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHERE: Trafalgar Studios
WHEN: 3/6, runs to 13/8
Standing ovations at the end of West End shows are nothing new but the enthusiasm with which this audience appreciated this play from the pen of Hollywood star Jesse Eisenberg and in which he also stars surprised even us.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: National (Olivier Theatre)
WHEN: 21/5, runs to 1/9
Rory Kinnear must be a dream of an actor to work with. Instead of dominating this adaptation of Brecht and Weill’s classic as Captain Macheath he takes a step back to allow the entire cast to shine.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: Trafalgar Studios 2
WHEN: 17/5 runs to 11/6
Stage fright is the ailment one might normally associate with the theatre but here we were far more worried about the probability of trench foot affecting the cast.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: Donmar Warehouse
WHEN: 29/4, runs to 18/6
At just 75 minutes long Elegy feels like the obvious follow-up to author Nick Payne’s biggest hit Constellations, an exploration of free will and quantum physics, which opened on Broadway over a year ago starring Jake Gyllenhaal after a West End transfer.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHERE: Duke Of York’s
WHEN: 9/4, runs to 25/6
Kit Harington is onstage only in tight white boxer shorts showing off his muscles and reveals his bare bottom to whoops of delight from this audience at this first preview.
