Exclusive: New site-specific staging of Beautiful Thing to run at GDIF

Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing is to be staged in a site-specific dance-theatre retelling as part of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival.

The show will run against the backdrop of the play's Thamesmead location, and marks the 50th anniversary of the first families taking up residence on the estate.

The play was first performed in 1993 and is set on the south east London post-war council estates. An LGBTQ love story, it follows Jamie who is infatuated with his classmate Ste and who has to cope with his single mother.

Beautiful Thing will be co-directed by GDIF artistic director Bradley Hemmings and choreographer Robby Graham – who also worked on the recent Angels in America, that has just transferred to New York. The piece will run as part of the festival from 3 to 7 July.

Hemmings said: "GDIF is excited to be producing a site-specific, dance-theatre retelling of this landmark LGBTQ tale of young love blossoming on a south East London housing estate.

"GDIF invites audiences to "Dream a Little Dream" against the backdrop of a changing 21st century urban landscape, as Thamesmead celebrates new a chapter in its history on the 50th anniversary of the first family moving into this utopian riverside community."

As previously announced, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival will open this year with Duke Riley's Fly by Night which sees a flock of 1,500 trained pigeons take to the skies at dusk, lit by LED lights.

Also featured in the line-up is Windrush: 492, a performance with a soundscape by playwright Roy Williams. The piece, created with Gijs van Bon, will see the names of people who arrived on the ship transcribed in photoluminescent powder onto the ground around Cutty Sark Gardens. The piece runs as part of a series of events called Gateway which recalls the migrants who sailed from Jamaica and Trinidad to Tilbury Dock 70 years ago.

As part of the festival, Greenwich Fair returns from 22 to 24 June, and features appearances from high-wire artist Phoebe Bullzini, Southpaw Dance Company, Ockham's Razor. Dancing City will also return with companies including Candoco Dance and Ballet Black.

Graeae Theatre Company will also stage This Is Not For You between 30 June and 1 July at the Artillery Square. The piece pays tribute to Britain's war wounded.

Greenwich and Docklands International Festival runs from 21 June to 7 July in London with over 130 performances performed open air or site-specific and free.