Opening: Matrimonial, Eagles & Ridley Napalm
Amongst the major London openings, in the West End and further afield, this week are:
OPENING TONIGHT, Monday 18 April 2011, Corrie!, Jonathan Harvey’s play celebrating 50 years of Coronation Street, arrives at Richmond Theatre as part of a national tour. Taking fans “through the 7000 episodes and 2000 storylines” of the much-loved soap, it continues until 23 April.
ALSO TONIGHT, York Theatre Royal company in residence Belt Up Theatre return to London with a site-specific production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Taking audiences through the House of Detention in Clerkenwell – a building renowned as a prison, workhouse and cells for POWs – it promises to be a “nightmarish journey” and continues until 18 May.
OPENING TUESDAY, 19 April 2011, The Vaudevillains, a “musical extravaganza” from Les Enfant Terribles, opens at Charing Cross Theatre (formerly the New Players). A whodunnit featuring characters ranging from a “nervy knife thrower” to a “macabre mime artist”, it continues to 14 May 2011.
OPENING WEDNESDAY, 20 April 2011, Royce Ryton’s Crown Matrimonial, which centres on the abdication crisis that featured in recent Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech, is revived at Barons Court Theatre, where it runs to 7 May 2011.
OPENING THURSDAY, 21 April 2011 (previews from 16 April), Rona Munro‘s new play Little Eagles, telling the story of Sergei Korolyov, chief designer and “unsung hero” of the Soviet space programme, kicks off the Royal Shakespeare Company’s season of premieres at Hampstead Theatre, running until 7 May 2011.
ALSO ON THURSDAY (previews from 19 April), Natalie Ibu directs UK premiere of Sold, a new comedy by award-winning Australian playwright Suzie Miller set in the cut-throat world of property sales. Until 14 May 2011.
OPENING FRIDAY, 22 April 2011 (previews from 19 April), Philip Ridley’s new play Tender Napalm premieres at Southwark Playhouse. Billed as a “high-impact, high-concept two hander exploring the universe that is a relationship between a man and a woman”, it stars Vinette Robinson and Jack Gordon and runs until 14 May 2011.
OPENING SATURDAY, 23 April 2011, to mark Shakespeare’s birthday, the Globe presents its small-scale touring production of Hamlet, directed by Dominic Dromgoole and starring Joshua McGuire (Posh) in the title role, in rep until 9 July.
