Johan Persson News

Chamberlin, Powell & Bon's brutalist design is an instantly recognisable part of London's architecture; the grade II listed building formed the inspiration for the film adaptation of JG Ballard's novel High-Rise. Formerly the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican Theatre was also the original London home of long-running musical Les Misérables before its transfer to the West End.

Last year, Rob Houchen was seen on both sides of the Atlantic in The Light in the Piazza, and returned to the role of Marius in Les Miserables: The Staged Concert at the Gielgud Theatre. He's also part of the team behind the successful West End Does concert series. Rob spoke to BroadwayWorld about his career and his most recent role in the anticipated West End transfer of the Olivier Award-winning production City of Angels, now in previews at the Garrick Theatre.

Following the lacklustre reception of The Taming of the Shrew, Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women opens in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as part of the Globe's continuing 'She Wolves and Shrews' season. Where Shakespeare's play showed a woman tamed, however, Middleton explores the unbridled rage and fallout of women scorned.

Simon Manyonda spoke to BroadwayWorld UK about Far Away, how it feels to be working with Caryl Churchill and the power of language.

Robert Hastie's new production of Coriolanus follows his critically acclaimed production of Julius Caesar. The production runs from 6 March to 28 March with a Press Night on 10 March.

The Menier Chocolate Factory today presents the European première of Paula Vogel's Tony Award-winning play Indecent. Rebecca Taichman directs Cory English - The Middle (Male); Beverley Klein - The Elder (Female); Finbar Lynch - The Stage Manager; Molly Osborne - The Ingenue (Female); Peter Polycarpou - The Elder (Male); Alexandra Silber - The Middle (Female); Joseph Timms - The Ingenue (Male); Merlin Shepherd - The Clarinettist; Anna Lowenstein - The Violinist, and Josh Middleton - The Accordionist.

With 22 Grammys and hundreds of millions in worldwide sales, the potentially fascinating story of Gloria Estefan, her husband Emilio and their journey to success with the Miami Sound Machine has the potential to be a fantastic jukebox musical. On Your Feet has plenty of material to draw upon; with an intricate journey through issues of immigration, racism and a life-threatening accident, it is a fun and frothy evening.

Back in 2002, when Caryl Churchill's A Number premiered at the Royal Court, genetics was the hot new topic. The Human Genome Project was on the verge of being completed and a few years earlier Dolly the sheep had been cloned, leading to very real discussions about whether or not humans could end up being cloned. It was still science fiction, of course, as demonstrated a few years later when South Korean claims of harvesting viable stem cells from a cloned human embryo were found to be false. Nonetheless, Churchill's play featuring a father and his cloned sons must have captured the imagination of audiences.

Polly Findlay directs Roger Allam and Colin Morgan in Caryl Churchill's play A Number at the Bridge Theatre running to 14 March 2020. Designs are by Lizzie Clachan with lighting by Peter Mumford, sound by Carolyn Downing, music by Marc Tritschler and casting by Robert Sterne.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh have released the first set of images from rehearsals for the brilliant original production of The Phantom of the Opera which comes to Birmingham Hippodrome from 29 July – 12 September 2020.

Kevin Mathurin is currently appearing in The Visit, Tony Kushner's adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's play of the same name at the National Theatre. Mathurin plays Bill, one of the inhabitants of Slurry tempted by Claire Zachanassian's offer of a billion dollars in exchange for the murder of one man...

The UK and Ireland tour of The Phantom of the Opera opens at Curve, Leicester on 22 February 2020. Get a first look inside rehearsals!

Born out of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, Ben Elton's sit-com Upstart Crow went on to have three series and multiple Christmas specials. It follows William Shakespeare, who's by now rather well-known in London, as he attempts to write his notorious body of work pinching ideas here and there and taking credit for quotes that aren't his, scribbling away whenever his nearest and dearest say something clever for future use.

Three years after the National's enthralling revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, the playwright returns with his new adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's tragicomic 1956 parable a?' which has also been turned into an Ingrid Bergman-starring film and a Kander and Ebb musical.

In just 45 minutes, Caryl Churchill's Far Away walks a tightrope between tricksy surrealism and dystopian warning but stays upright due to its sheer theatricality.

Far Away is now playing at The Donmar Warehouse.

The Visit plays on the Olivier Stage at The National Theatre until 13 May.

The Taming of the Shrew is arguably one of Shakespeare's most controversial comedies. In Maria Gaitandi's production, designer Liam Bunster has helped to transform the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse with raised platforms and ladders, with the cast using them constantly throughout. Although you occasionally lose sight of the performers as they climb onto the various platforms, it makes the production unique from anything else I've seen in the space.

​​​​​​​The first performance of Matthew Bourne's contemporary Swan Lake was performed at the Sadler's Wells Theater, London, in 1995. It has endured twenty-five years with the staying power of a new classic -- for very good reason. Bourne has reinvented the swans from maidens who have been turned into beautiful swans by an evil sorcerer, to male swans, summoned by the dreams and desires of a pampered, regimented prince, no sorcerer in sight. Much has been made of this and the homoerotic overtones that appear at times; however, there is much more to it than that as a piece of theater. It is a psychological drama which explores, among other things, celebrity and Royalty in today's world.

Far Away begins previews from 6 February 2020 at The Donmar Warehouse