UK Roundup - I Am My Own Wife, Jeremy Irons, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Spacey

The Duke of York's Theatre has a busy time ahead. After the swift closure of Tom, Dick and Harry – the new Ray/Michael Cooney farce - in November it hosts the UK premiere of I Am My Own Wife, the Tony Award winning Broadway play, with original star Jefferson Mays. According to production notes, I Am My Own Wife 'tells of author Doug Wright's fascination with the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite caught up in the great European dramas of the 20th century'. Mays and Wright won the Tony awards for Best Actor and Best Play respectively. Its stop in London is part of an extensive world tour, taking it to Poland, Ireland, London and Melbourne, as well as across the United States. It plays until February 4th.

Following on from I Am My Own Wife at the theatre is the stage return of Academy Award winning actor Jeremy Irons. Returning after a seventeen year absence in Christopher Hampton's new play Embers, directed by Michael Blakemore, he plays a retired general awaiting the arrival of a friend he hasn't seen for years. It is based on the 1942 novel by Sandor Marai. Irons' extensive credits include Brideshead Revisited, Lolita, Reversal of Fortune and recently The Merchant of Venice, though he has an astonishing six upcoming film/TV projects in the next year. No other casting for the three-hander has been announced and it opens at the Duke of York's on March 1st 2006 after 2 weeks of previews.

Woody Harrelson will also return to the London stage to appear in a revival of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana. With Olivier winner Clare Higgins – currently appearing in Death of a Salesman – the Anthony Page production will start previews at the Lyric Theatre on November 23rd. Best known for his role in TV show Cheers, Harrelson's performance was described as 'mesmerising' by the Guardian when he made his West End debut in On An Average Day three years ago. His other credits include Doc Hollywood, Natural Born Killers and The People vs. Larry Flynt. Higgins won the Best Actress Olivier Award in 2005 for Hecuba, adding to her two others. It is booking until March 2006.

The Royal Court Theatre has announced its 50th Anniversary season. Highlights include Tom Stoppard and Trevor Nunn making their Royal Court debuts with Stoppard's new play Rock 'n' Roll in June 2006, Harold Pinter acting in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, a new Terry Johnson play written for Kelly Reilly and Alicia Witt, and six plays from contemporary playwrights such as Tanika Gupta and Simon Stephens. Directors from the Royal Court's history, including Stephen Daldry, William Gaskill and Max Stafford-Clark, are also included in the year-long events. Current artistic director Ian Rickson, who stands down at the end of the celebrations, directs Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine and Chekhov's The Seagull. Full details of the exciting year can be found here.

The UK tour of Annie Get Your Gun, a staging of the Bernadette Peters Broadway revival, is to end its tour early due to poor sales. Starring West End theatre star Rebecca Thornhill (Chicago, Ragtime, Witches of Eastwick), the show will now close in Plymouth in December instead of continuing through to 2006. The cast also features regular touring actor Steven Houghton and former Coronation Street star Charles Lawson. The musical ran on Broadway in 1999 for 1045 performances, so why the poor sales? The touring climate is very strong at the moment – Miss Saigon, Thoroughly Modern Millie, My Fair Lady – and star names such as Nigel Havers and Tom Conti make it difficult for shows with smaller stars to stand out. Ah well, there's no business like showbusiness after all..

And finally, Kevin Spacey has received rave reviews for his performance in Richard II. Superlative comments – 'strong enough for us at last to feel confident about the future of Spacey's regime' (Times) - may be excellent news for the venue, after less enthusiastic response to earlier productions, but the problem Spacey now faces is one he addressed just last month at a press conference. Speaking to journalists, he said that he didn't want audiences to come to the theatre 'because I'm on stage', and yet a source at the theatre tells me that during his absence from The Philadelphia Story houses dipped from around 800 to 300. Still, for the time being the theatre can look forward to a successful autumn/winter season, with Ian McKellen's Aladdin returning to - hopefully - sell-out houses.

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