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Opening: Iceland Romeo, Murderer Dennis, HOTBOI

Amongst the major shows opening in London this week are:

OPENING TUESDAY, 16 November 2004 (preview 15 November), H-O-T-B-O-I, receives its world premiere at London’s Soho Theatre, where it continues a strictly limited run to 27 November (See News, 14 Oct 2004). The one-man play reunites playwright Tim Fountain and actor Bette Bourne for the first time since Fountain’s multi award-winning Resident Alien, the monologue in which Bourne starred as the late journalist Quentin Crisp.

A story about love across the generations, H-O-T-B-O-I's set in Notting Hill, where a young man is longing for a life beyond the pill-popping London club scene and an older man (Bourne) is needing to feel young again. Natasha Betteridge, whose previous credits include Fountain’s one-woman play Julie Burchill Is Away, directs.

OPENING WEDNESDAY, 17 November 2004 (previews from 10 November), affable TV presenter Les Dennis plays decidedly against type as the sinister lead in a new revival of Anthony Shaffer’s 1975 thriller Murderer at the Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark, south London (See News, 26 Oct 2004).

Norman Bartholomew has decided he’s had enough of his girlfriend and is going to kill her. But, after an opening that’s billed as “one of the most horrifying scenes ever devised for the stage”, things do not go as expected. The production, directed by Adam Speers, also features Caroline Langrishe as Norman’s wife Elizabeth. It continues until January 2005.

OPENING THURSDAY, 18 November 2004 (previews from 13 November), the Young Vic’s Romeo and Juliet, care of Reykjavik trapeze troupe Artbox/Vesturport, flies back to London for a West End run at the Playhouse Theatre (See News, 27 Oct 2004). The original Icelandic company reprise their roles in the Whatsonstage.com Award-nominated production that, inspired by the world of circus performance, aerial and acrobatic choreography to tell the story of Shakespeare’s two young ‘star-cross’d lovers’. Gísli Örn Gardarson, who also directs the adaptation he helped create, plays Romeo opposite Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir as Juliet.

** DON'T MISS your chance for £20 tickets to Romeo & Juliet – offer ends 21 November 2004 - click here for more info! **

ALSO ON THURSDAY, Julian Fox, billed as the “Harold Pinter of stand-up comedy”, brings his show New Spaces for Role Models to the Barbican Pit. Following the success of Goodbye Seattle Coffee Company, the sometime stage door-keeper turns his attention to Gatwick Airport, childhood travel and religion in this new multimedia creation.

- by Terri Paddock

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