With Summer in Brexit mode, but the possibility of grey rainy days still real, here are ten productions our Editorial Staff are looking forward to seeing in July.
CUT
Winner of the Best Theatre award at Adelaide Fringe 2015, and the Underbelly Adelaide Award 2015, this is the London premiere of CUT – an edge-of-your-seat thriller, written by award-winning Australian playwright Duncan Graham and performed by Hannah Norris.
A woman prepares for work. Pursued by a man, she is hunter and hunted.
CUT is a total work of art. A Lynchian dream that transports an audience deep into the heart of 21st century fears – the psychological equivalent of extreme turbulence. Part installation, part theatre poem, part noir thriller, prepare to be sealed into this intimate and unforgettable experience.
Exposure the Musical
Young photographer Jimmy Tucker faces the biggest and most exciting challenge of his life when a stranger commissions him to find and shoot the seven deadly sins alive and kicking in modern London.
But in a break-neck race through the night, a series of extraordinary encounters involving girlfriends, family history and the intoxicating cult of celebrity begin to reveal that there’s a whole lot more at stake than just money.
Weaving a breathtaking, contemporary score around a dazzlingly witty portrait of the price of fame, Exposure promises to be an electrifying and brilliantly original new musical that is simply unmissable.
I’m Getting My Act Together And Taking It On The Road
This first UK revival of this ground-breaking, long running, off-Broadway and West End musical – I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking it On the Road – marks the show’s triumphant return to London 35 years after it was first seen at the West End.
This new production promises to lead audiences on a moving and emotionally charged musical journey about love, friendships and new beginnings. Described as a ‘controversial sensation’, I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking it On the Road marked a watershed moment in the history of musical theatre when it first premiered, challenging gender roles through the exploration of friendships, relationships and the pursuit of personal goals. Now, London audiences will experience a new production of this touching, poignant and hilarious show.
Bookings
Into The Woods
Following great critical success in New York, innovative and ground-breaking theatre company Fiasco brings its enchanting reinvention of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s masterpiece Into The Woods to the Chocolate Factory.
Using ten actors, multiple musical instruments and boundless imagination, this fairytale classic is reimagined as never before.
Jesus Christ Superstar
Celebrating 45 years since Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s seminal musical first hit the stage, Jesus Christ Superstar returns to London in a new production directed by Timothy Sheader.
Singer-songwriter Declan Bennett, once a member of Brit Award nominated band Point Break, and more recently the lead in the musical Once, will take the role of Jesus.
With a legendary score including I Don’t Know How to Love Him, Gethsemane and Superstar, and musical direction by Tom Deering and choreography by Olivier Award-winner Drew McOnie, experience epic storytelling in the remarkable surroundings of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
Peter Schlemiel
Peter Schlemiel is the arresting and haunting story of an ordinary man who foolishly exchanges his shadow for endless fortune and fame, and must face the bitter consequences. This brand new adaptation by Matthew Bosley is a physical, robust and darkly humorous reimagining of Adelbert von Chamisso’s classic 19th century novella, itself based on a popular German folk tale thought to have inspired the story of Peter Pan.
Visually and aurally striking, the show plunges you into Peter’s extraordinary world of shadows, forests and existential dread, and confronts resonating issues today of status anxiety, the race for success, and social isolation.
Bookings
Pigs and Dogs“You western backed goats,
They forced us into slavery and killed millions.
Now they want us to accept the sinfulness of homos.
It shall not work.”
In 2014 Uganda passed an Anti-Homosexuality Act.
This short startling play looks at what lies behind it.
Rotterdam
Rotterdam, directed by Donnacadh O’Briain, is a bittersweet comedy about gender, sexuality and being a long way from home by acclaimed writer Jon Brittain, co-creator of Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho, and writer of What Would Spock Do? and The Sexual Awakening of Peter Mayo.
Alice wants to come out as a lesbian. Her girlfriend wants to start living as a man. It’s New Year in Rotterdam and Alice has finally plucked up the courage to email her parents and tell them she’s gay. But before she can hit send, her girlfriend reveals that he has always identified as a man and now wants to start living as one. Now Alice must face a question she never thought she’d ask… does this mean she’s straight?
The Fix
Atomicus Entertainment is thrilled to produce first show at the Union Theatre’s brand new, state-of-the-art home: the triumphant return of Michael Strassen’s critically acclaimed production of The Fix.
When the most popular presidential candidate dies between his mistress‘s thighs his status-starved widow, Violet, decides that if she can’t be the wife of the president, she’ll be his mother!
Thrusting her lacklustre son Cal into the spotlight, Violet is determined to create the perfect politician at any cost in this brutally comedic tale of lust, greed and scandal. With a rock-fuelled score, laced with scandalous lyrics, the team behind The Witches of Eastwick deliver a dark and spellbinding ride through the American political machine.
Through The Mill
Set primarily during the filming of The Judy Garland Show in 1963, Through the Mill chronicles the production difficulties behind the scenes, intercut with the young Judy Garland’s rise to fame through MGM in the 1930s, and her triumphant sell-out concert engagement at the Palace Theatre in the early 1950s.
Illustrating why Judy Garland was, and continues to be, one of the great legends of show business history, Through the Mill goes beyond the rainbow, and explores the life of a woman destined for greatness; as loved today as she was when she first made her way along the yellow brick road. For both audiences new to Garland’s extensive back catalogue in the world of film and music, as well as the true Judy aficionado, here is an honest, entertaining and moving portrait of a legend; as courageous, determined, sincere and funny as she was memorably tragic.
The show features a hit list of Judy Garland favourites, including The Trolley Song,The Man That Got Away and Over the Rainbow, with a sixteen strong company of actor musicians, and a cast headed by three actresses playing the legend herself. The three actresses from the original run will reprise their roles at Southwark Playhouse. Helen Sheals (Downton Abbey) plays CBS Judy, native Australian Belinda Wollaston plays Palace Judy, and newcomer Lucy Penrose plays Young Judy.
Watch the Stage Door Johnny Interview
Unreachable
A film director on an obsessive quest to capture the perfect light.
Renowned for his pioneering, ground-breaking and imaginative new work, writer and director Anthony Neilson returns to the Royal Court with a new play that will be created in the rehearsal room.
Throughout rehearsals, online content based on ideas the company are experimenting with, will be posted every few days on unreachabletheplay.com, gradually building a collection of references that will offer audiences an insight into the process of devising work, and the themes and images that will shape the finished show.