Lyric Hammersmith announces new season

Laura Wade will adapt Sarah Waters's Tipping the Velvet for the stage as part of the Lyric Hammersmith's new season.

Reuniting Wade with Posh director Lyndsey Turner, it will be the first stage adaptation of Waters's novel, which had a TV adaptation in 2002 starring Rachel Stirling, Keeley Hawes and Anna Chancellor.

Set in Victorian England, it tells the story of a young woman, Nancy Astley, who falls in love with a male impersonator, Kitty Butler.

Waters said of the adaptation: "I can think of no better setting for the play than the lush Lyric
interior, and no more exciting creative talents than those of writer Laura Wade and director Lyndsey
Turner. The production promises to be full of energy, fun and music-hall sparkle – in other words,
everything I could hope for. I am simply delighted."

Tipping the Velvet runs at Lyric Hammersmith from 18 September to 24 October 2015.

Also announced today is this year's Lyric pantomime, a new version of Cinderella by Tom Wells, which will run from 21 November 2015 to 3 January 2016.

Publicity material states: "Grab your glittery Converse and put the pumpkin into top gear as Cinderella heads to the biggest party of the season to meet a very charming Prince."

Tom Wells has previously written Jack and the Beanstalk and Dick Whittington and His Cat for the Lyric, and his other plays include Symphony and Jumpers for Goalposts.

The Studio will see the return of Raymond Briggs's Father Christmas, running from 20 November to 24 December 2015.

Casting for all of the productions is to be announced.

The first show to reopen the revamped Lyric Hammersmith is Bugsy Malone, which runs until 1 August 2015.