Production photos have been released for Manor, a timely new play by Moira Buffini (The Dig, Harlots), that opened in the Lyttelton for previews on 16 November and is running until 1 January.
In this darkly comic play, a violent storm is brewing and Diana, played by Nancy Carroll (The Crown) is struggling to keep the roof on her rundown manor house. As the storm sweeps the coast, an explosive mix of people unexpectedly arrive in search of shelter including Ted Farrier, played by Shaun Evans (Vigil), a charismatic leader of a far-right organisation. Stranded together, this group of strangers must survive the weather - and each other.
As theatre comes roaring back, this autumn and winter see plenty of exciting new productions, including big West End musicals and intriguing plays. Here are the shows that we’re most looking forward to seeing.
Extra tickets go on sale to the public from Monday 19 July. Tickets for The Normal Heart, East is East, Manor and Hex on sale to the public from Friday 30 July. Learn more about all of the upcoming productions here!
The National Theatre has today announced its programming until the start of next year with productions on all three South Bank stages as well as three major UK tours, two productions on Broadway, a return to cinemas, and a new feature film to be broadcast on television this autumn. In the week the theatre reopened for audiences again, six new productions were announced, and five productions halted by the pandemic were confirmed to return to the South Bank.
And they're off! London theatres have been open for several weeks now, and the reviews once again are coming hard and fast as a glance at this very site will confirm. Quick off the mark have been the smaller-sized shows: solo plays like Cruise or Harm or a three-person West End entry like Amy Berryman's Walden (though that title was beset by pre-opening dramas of its own, more of which below). But as the big musicals prepare their own re-emergence on to a scene marked out already by the producer Sonia Friedman's RE:EMERGE season (of which Walden is the first of three to open), excitement is in the air. The question now remains as to who, precisely, the audience is likely to be for these shows, given the difficulty for many in travelling to the UK.
An all-star cast has assembled for an online reading of William Wycherley's 1671 comedy Love in a Wood, presented by Jermyn Street Theatre, conceived and directed by Hermione Gulliford, and performed in aid of Equity Charitable Trust.
An ever-mutating virus has led to general uncertainty on and off the West End about the start-up of live performance. That shifting scenario in turn brings to mind some of the titles from this time last year that were sounding especially promising and that, with luck, will reappear at some point to make good on their potential.
Casting has been announced for David Mamet's Oleanna, the final play in Theatre Royal Bath's Welcome Back Season this Autumn. The provocative drama will play in the theatre's main house from Wednesday 25 November to Saturday 12 December with press night on Wednesday 2 December 2020.
In the week that Dominic West appeared in a cringe-worthy “We’re still happily married” two-hander on the doorstep of his Wiltshire home with his deceived wife, the opening of Harold Pinter’s tale of betraying loved ones couldn’t be more timely.
BETRAYAL, Harold Pinter’s mesmerising masterpiece of relationships and adultery, is directed by Jonathan Church and stars Nancy Carroll, Joseph Millson, Edward Bennett and Christopher Bianchi.
Hurrah for the green shoots in our beleaguered industry. Lots of venues are mounting new shows and bringing back our favourites over the next few weeks and months - albeit with social distancing and safety measures in place. Here are some of the live theatrical goodies on offer.
Casting has been announced for the first two plays in the Theatre Royal Bath's WELCOME BACK Season this Autumn. Two of the country's leading actresses, Nancy Carroll and Haydn Gwynne, are joined by a distinguished cast of experienced stage and screen performers.
A violent storm sweeps the coast. Diana Stuckley and her daughter are struggling to keep the roof on their run-down manor house, when neighbours and strangers begin to appear on their doorstep, seeking shelter from the floods.
Every year, since 2009, The Ten Chimneys Foundation, which facilitates the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program, brings together just ten of the nation's top regional theatre actors to work with a world-renowned Master Teacher. This year, PCPA's Kitty Balay was selected to join leading actors and acting teachers who were chosen from an exclusive list of only ten national theatres. The actors will participate in a week of master classes headed by distinguished actress Tyne Daly from July 14 - 20, 2019. The intensive master class will take place at the estate of theatre legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin. This is a life-altering opportunity for the selected theatre actors to expand their creative and mentoring abilities.
The second production housed at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester's 2019 line-up is Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. Written after the writer lost his lover Kenny Morgan to suicide, the play details the day that follows Hester Collyer's attempted one. When her nosy neighbours find her unconscious body, they contact her husband Bill - a judge and established member of London's high society - whom she left ten months prior to jump head-first in a passionate affair with Freddie Page, an ex-RAF pilot who's now unemployed and struggling.