Features

Top 5 openings of the week: 9 to 15 October

Mel Brooks’ ”Young Frankenstein” arrives in London, while Simon Stephens has two plays staged

Hair in rehearsals
Hair in rehearsals
© Claire Bilyard

5. Hair

The Vaults, London until 3 December

When Hair was first performed in the '60s (the initial London cast featured a young Elaine Paige, no less), it caused a stir. A hippy-love-and-peace 'tribal rock' musical, the show involves a famous nude scene and depictions of illegal drugs and free love. Goodness. It's 50 years later but has the world caught up with Hair? This 'immersive' revival is the only way to find out if we're still as shocked by all those things as we were then. The show arrives after a run at Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre and promises to transform the Vaults into a psychedelic flower-power hub. Peace and love, man.

Find out more about who is cast in Hair here.


Brian Vernel and Lesley Sharp in The Seagull
Brian Vernel and Lesley Sharp in The Seagull
©Tristram Kenton

4. The Seagull

Lyric Hammersmith until 4 November

Simon Stephens' new adaptation of Chekhov's classic is directed by Sean Holmes, with Lesley Sharpe starring as Irina. The play switches, as Chekhov often does, between the deep and meaningful and the downright ridiculous in its portrait of a young, aspiring Russian writer and his fading actress mother. There's a crack cast at play here in what looks like, from the pictures, a modern-dress production. Intriguing.

Find out what a week in the life of The Seagull actress Cherrelle Skeete looks like


3. The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

Theatr Clwyd until 28 October

Jim Cartwright's beautiful and poignant, music-filled play first opened at the National in 1992 and was made into a hit film with Jane Horrocks, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent and Brenda Blethyn in 1998. The cast in this revival at Theatr Clwyd may not be as famous, but they are no less exciting, with Welsh actor Catrin Aaron singing all the classics by everyone from Shirley Bassey to Judy Garland.

Take a tour of Theatr Clwyd here


Anne Marie-Duff and Kenneth Cranham in Heisenberg
Anne Marie-Duff and Kenneth Cranham in Heisenberg
© Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

2. Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle

Wyndham's Theatre until 6 January

Yet another Simon Stephens play, this time it's an original. Heisenberg arrives over here, after a run across the pond, starring Anne-Marie Duff and Kenneth Cranham and promises to be an absolute cracker, especially because it reunites the team behind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The piece follows an unlikely meeting of two people in a station and how their lives are then changed forever.

Look at our gallery of Anne-Marie Duff and Kennethh Cranham in rehearsals here.


The cast of Young Frankenstein
The cast of Young Frankenstein
© Manuel Harlan

1. Young Frankenstein

Garrick Theatre until 3 January

It's alive! Mel Brooks' musical version of his hit '74 film starring Gene Wilder comes to the London stage starring comedian Ross Noble, Summer Strallen, Hadley Fraser, Lesley Joseph, Dianne Pilkington and more. It promises to be a roller coaster ride of slapstick laughs, all directed by Susan Stroman, with Brooks well and truly overseeing. The show, which focuses on the grandson of the original Victor Frankenstein, has been touring out of town, but now arrives in the West End.

Find out who else will be starring in Young Frankenstein