Opening: Tiffany’s, Tongues, Rat Pack, Ears, Wind
Amongst a busy week of major London openings – in the West End and further afield – this week are:
OPENING TONIGHT, Monday 28 September 2009 (previews from 18 September), John Simm, Ian Hart, Kerry Fox and Lucy Cohu star in the West End premiere of Australian Andrew Bovell’s 1996 detective story Speaking in Tongues at the Duke of York’s (See News, 29 Jun 2009. The play, which was later made into the 2001 film Lantana, centres on nine parallel lives, all drawn together by the investigations of Simm’s lead character, detective Leon Zat.
ALSO TONIGHT (previews from 23 September), tribute concert Frank, Sammy and Dean – The Rat Pack Live from Las Vegas opens at the Adelphi Theatre (See News, 19 Jun 2009). The Frank, Sammy & Dean regular edition will run until 21 November 2009, followed by a limited season for the festive edition, Christmas with the Rat Pack from 24 November 2009 to 3 January 2010.
ALSO TONIGHT (previews from 23 September), Hampstead’s New End theatre presents a triple bill of rarely performed one act Tennessee Williams plays – This Property is Condemned, Talk to Me Like the Rain and The Lady of Larkspur Lotion – with a cast featuring Susannah York. Until 10 October.
OPENING TUESDAY, 29 September (previews from 9 September), Anna Friel plays Holly Golightly, the part immortalised on screen by Audrey Hepburn, in Samuel Adamson’s adaptation of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the Theatre Royal Haymarket (See News, 15 May 2009). It marks the first time that the Truman Capote Literary Trust has permitted a dramatic stage adaptation of the work, and is booking until 9 January 2010.
ALSO ON TUESDAY (previews from 23 September), Tim Crouch stars in his own play, The Author, at the Royal Court Upstairs. The production, billed as “a formally inventive piece which … explores how far the artist, or indeed the audience, is prepared to go in the name of art”, runs until 24 October as part of a season celebrating 40 years of the influential Theatre Upstairs (See News, 9 Jun 2009).
OPENING WEDNESDAY, 30 September 2009 (previews from 17 September), Little Britain’s Matt Lucas plays Joe Orton’s lover-murderer Kenneth Halliwell in Simon Bent’s new play Prick Up Your Ears, inspired by John Lahr’s book of the same name, which runs at the Comedy Theatre following a short regional tour (See News, 22 Jun 2009).
ALSO ON WEDNESDAY (previews from 25 September), the Shakespeare’s Globe 2009 season concludes with a two-week run of last year’s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by Dominic Dromgoole and starring Trystan Gravelle and Michelle Terry, ahead of a US tour.
OPENING THURSDAY, 1 October 2009 (previews from 18 September), Trevor Nunn directs Kevin Spacey and David Troughton in courtroom drama Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic, where it continues to 20 December (See News, 5 Jun 2009).
First performed in 1955 and often considered one of the great American plays of the twentieth century, the play is a fictionalised account the famous 1925 Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial in which science teacher John Scopes was accused of violating a Tennessee state statute by teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to his students.
ALSO ON THURSDAY (preview 30 September), The Wrestling School presents Howard Barker’s Found in the Ground at Riverside Studios. A cast of 13 will “create a continuously revolving kaleidoscope of bodies, sounds and gesture based around two strong images: a trio of barking guard dogs and a blazing bonfire”. Until 11 October.
ALSO ON THURSDAY (previews from 29 September), the Finborough Theatre presents the English premiere of Iain Heggie’s satirical play The Tobacco Merchant’s Lawyer, set in Glasgow in 1775. The play, which arrives in London following a successful Scottish tour, is directed by Liz Carruthers, and continues until 24 October.
