New Mike Bartlett play to open Almeida winter season

The Almeida today launched its winter season, featuring new plays and revivals to run alongside their recently announced West End transfers.

Mike Bartlett, who in 2014 premiered Olivier Award-winning King Charles III at the same venue, will begin the season with new play Albion from 10 October. Directed by artistic director Rupert Goold, Albion discusses questions of British national identity and anxiety in the wake of the 2016 referendum. Victoria Hamilton will be starring in a key role.

In December, American playwright Anne Washburn, whose credits include Mr Burns and Iphigenia in Aulis, will debut new work The Twilight Zone, directed by Richard Jones. Based on the TV series of the same name, the show will be set against the backdrop of Cold War hysteria.

The season also sees a revival of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke, directed by Rebecca Frecknall. The show marks the first time in 11 years that a Williams show has been staged at the Almeida, after a 2006 production of Period of Adjustment starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Goold says: "Each play [in the season] challenges the preoccupations of daily life in search of something more meaningful. The answers might lie close to home – the earth beneath our feet, the complexity of family, or national identity."

The Almeida continues the Figures of Speech digital project, featuring standalone filmed speeches from Derek Jacobi, Noma Dumezweni, Russell Tovey, Pearl Mackie and John Heffernan.

The venue also transfers two shows to the West End for further runs. James Graham's Ink will be playing at the Duke of York's Theatre from 9 September. Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, which ran at the Almeida earlier this year, will transfer to the same venue from January 2018.