Photos: Inside Rehearsals for FLYBY Ahead of Southwark Playhouse Premiere
Emily and Daniel are played by Poppy Gilbert, and Stuart Thompson, with Gina Beck as Amy Greenwood, and more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 24, 2026
Originally developed in 2025 by the National Theatre, FLYBY fuses an intimate and exhilarating love story with the vast and endless loneliness of space. At its centre are Daniel (Stuart Thompson), a brilliant but unpredictable engineer who disappears into the void, and Emily (Poppy Gilbert), a fiercely intelligent documentary film maker with a complicated past.
As the narrative shifts between past and present, we uncover the tangled forces that drove him there - Daniel and Emily’s passionate, combustible relationship; his growing psychological unravelling; and Emily’s struggle to define herself amid talent, ambition, and moral ambiguity.
FLYBY is a musical story about the magnetism of desire, the inescapable gravity between two people, and their need to feel deeply - sometimes recklessly - alive.
Emily and Daniel are played by Poppy Gilbert, and Stuart Thompson, with Gina Beck as Amy Greenwood, Rupert Young as Jonathan Jay, and Simbi Akande as Grace Adams.
Joining Theo and Adam on the creative team are set designer Libby Todd, lighting designer Ben Jacobs, sound designer Kelsh Buckman-Drage, costume designer Eleanor Bull and musical director Ben Kubiak.
Photo credit: Alex Brenner
Poppy Gilbert, Stuart Thompson
Gina Beck, Poppy Gilbert, Rupert Young
Stuart Thompson, Poppy Gilbert
Simbi Akande, Rupert Young
Stuart Thompson, Poppy Gilbert
Stuart Thompson, Gina Beck, Simbi Akande, Rupert Young, Poppy Gilbert
Gina Beck, Stuart Thompson, Rupert Young
Poppy Gilbert, Stuart Thompson
Poppy Gilbert
Gina Beck, Simbi Akande, Rupert Young
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