Features

Theatre highlights of the week: Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan open Skylight, last chance to see Fatal Attraction

Busy times for the West End this week

Ben Hewis

16 June 2014

Tuesday 17 June

Hobson's Choice opens at the Open Air Theatre

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre's season continues with this Harold Brighouse comedy from the cobbles of Lancashire. Set to the sights and sounds of the sixties, Mark Benton plays bombastic boot-shop owner Henry Horatio Hobson. When his 'plain' daughter, Maggie (Jodie McNee) becomes intent on marrying long-suffering boot-maker Willie Mossop (Karl Davies), Hobson's future looks uncertain. However it is hapless Willie who triumphs in this unlikely love story, as newfound fortitude deals a resolution that is – Hobson's Choice.

Wednesday 18 June

Skylight opens at Wyndham's Theatre

Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan in *Skylight*

The original production of David Hare's Skylight premiered in 1995 at The National Theatre before transferring to the West End and won the Olivier Award for Best Play. The revival at Wyndham's is directed by Stephen Daldry (The Audience, An Inspector Calls and Billy Elliot the Musical) and stars Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Notes on a Scandal and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) alongside Carey Mulligan (Inside Llewyn Davis, The Great Gatsby and An Education) making her West End stage debut. They are joined by Matthew Beard (An Education, One Day, The Look of Love).

On a bitterly cold London evening, schoolteacher Kyra Hollis (Mulligan) receives an unexpected visit from her former lover, Tom Sergeant (Nighy), a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. As the evening progresses, the two attempt to rekindle their once passionate relationship only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires.

Thursday 19 June

Adler & Gibb opens at Royal Court – Jerwood Theatre

Adler & Gibb tells the story of a raid – on a house, a life, a reality and a legacy.

The children swing their legs on the chairs. The student delivers the presentation. The older woman stands with the gun. The young couple arrives at the house. The house is returning to nature. A movie is being made. The truth is being plundered. But the house is still lived in and the spirit to resist is strong.

The play takes Tim Crouch‘s fascination with form and marries it to a thrilling story of misappropriation.

Janet Adler and Margaret Gibb were conceptual artists working in New York at the end of the last century. They were described by art critic Dave Hickey as the ‘most ferociously uncompromising voice of their generation’. With Adler’s death in 2004, however, the compromise began.

Dream of Perfect Sleep opens at the Finborough

A multi-award winning new play by American playwright Kevin Kautzman in his full length UK debut.

Dream of Perfect Sleep is the story of an aging couple, Mary and Gene, and their adult children – recovering-addict Robert and new-ager Melissa. Mary suffers from severe vertigo and just wants to watch her TV show. Gene’s busy organizing a very special holiday dinner, but party planning isn’t exactly his strong suit. When the estranged kids come home for the holidays, Gene reveals some unexpected news that threatens to destroy the family’s already strained bonds…

A funny, heartwarming and powerful story of hope and loss in the face of dementia and terminal illness as an elderly couple plan their last days on Earth.

Friday 20 June

Red Forest opens at the The Young Vic

The award-winning Belarus Free Theatre return with a new legend for the 21st century, created from extraordinary true stories from around the world and woven together with video and live music.

Aisha is on the run. Forced to flee her village and give birth to her baby girl in the Sahara, she crosses the globe in search of shelter. But to find it, she must overcome the terrible cruelties of nature and man.

East of Berlin opens at the Southwark Playhouse (The Little)

Standing outside his father’s study in Paraguay, Rudi is smoking cigarettes. It has been seven years since he left his family and their history behind him. As a teenager Rudi grew up blissfully unaware his father was a Nazi SS doctor at Auschwitz. When a friend reveals the truth, Rudi flees to Berlin to invent a new life. In the archives of a library he meets Sarah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Rudi’s path to redemption blurs as the past catches up with him and he is forced to confront his father and their history.

East of Berlin premiered in Toronto in 2009 to critical acclaim and was nominated for a Governor General Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.