This fall’s London theater season promises star vehicles aplenty alongside robust reimaginings of the classics and even a notable song or two. What follows is just a sampling of the city’s abundance of new openings, anticipated revivals and Off West End discoveries — something to keep everyone cozy as the nights draw in.
Time-honored classics
Waiting For Godot
Samuel Beckett’s epoch-defining tragicomedy returns with some frequency to London stages. But I’ve rarely seen it better served than by the dream double-act of Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati as those engaging existentialists, Vladimir and Estragon, alongside the no less memorable Jonathan Slinger and Tom Edden as the itinerant Pozzo and Lucky. The director James Macdonald brings the same gift for textual illumination to the production that has distinguished his career over several decades. Runs through Dec. 14 at the Theater Royal, Haymarket.
Roots / Look Back in Anger
The Almeida Theater is reviving two English classics, running concurrently, whose kitchen-sink realism ushered in a more urgent, socially conscious school of theater in the 1950s. Billed as the “Angry and Young” season, Arnold Wesker’s “Roots” and John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger” both feature outspoken firebrands trying to make sense of the world. The two productions share a single cast, led by Billy Howle and Morfydd Clark; Diyan Zora and Atri Banerjee direct. Both shows run through Nov. 23 at the Almeida Theater.
The Real Thing / The Invention of Love
Tom Stoppard twice over is a real treat, given the eminence of the dramatist, now 87. The Old Vic is well into a run of his frequently revived 1982 play “The Real Thing,” with James McArdle in biting form as an adulterous playwright who discover the abrasions of love firsthand. December sees a rare revival at the Hampstead Theater of Stoppard onetime National Theater and Broadway success, “The Invention of Love.” That 1997 play brings the great Simon Russell Beale back to the stage as the poet and scholar A.E. Housman, who reflects on a life dedicated to Hellenic studies — and heartache. “The Real Thing” runs through Oct. 26 at the Old Vic; “The Invention of Love” runs Dec. 4 through Jan. 25, 2025, at the Hampstead Theater.
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry’s play, which gets regularly revived in New York, is getting a major airing this fall at the Lyric Hammersmith in West London. Tinuke Craig directs this telling of the Younger family’s travails and triumphs on Chicago’s South Side, with a cast including Solomon Israel as the strong-minded Walter Lee, a chauffeur hoping for a better lot in life, and Doreene Blackstock as the Younger family matriarch, Lena. Runs Oct. 8 through Nov. 2 at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Book and movie adaptations
Dr. Strangelove
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film imagines a world on the brink of disaster — when isn’t it? — albeit presented here as a dark comedy and given renewed life by the sharp-eyed satirist Armando Iannucci (“Veep,” “The Thick of It”) and the Olivier Award-winning director, Sean Foley (“The Play What I Wrote”). Steve Coogan, himself a comic titan, juggles four parts onstage, including Major Kong — who was played by Slim Pickens in the film — as well as Peter Sellers’s three characters. The supporting cast is led by the protean Giles Terera, London’s first Aaron Burr in “Hamilton.” Runs Oct. 8 through Jan. 25, 2025, at the Noël Coward Theater.
The Forsyte Saga
The Nobel laureate John Galsworthy’s dynastic chronicle, told across three novels and two shorter “interludes,” has had several notable TV adaptations. A fresh two-part stage version for the Park Theater revisits the various generations of the privileged Forsytes, starting with Joseph Millson as the unhappily married solicitor, Soames, and Flora Spencer-Longhurst as his headstrong but heartbroken daughter, Fleur. The director Josh Roche’s ambitious staging can be seen over two nights, or on a single day, as a matinee and an evening show. Runs Oct. 11 through Dec. 7 at the Park Theater.
The Buddha of Suburbia
The Royal Shakespeare Company has a new leadership team in the co-directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, and this adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel proved an early success for them when it premiered at the company’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon last spring. It’s now transferring to the Barbican in London, with Dee Ahluwalia once again heading the cast as the questing teenager, Karim, who seeks release from the strictures of suburban life. Emma Rice directs, and has co-adapted with Kureishi. Runs Oct. 22 through Nov. 16 at the Barbican Theater.
Ballet Shoes
Noel Streatfeild’s 1936 tale of three adopted sisters whose names all start with P is a beloved children’s book in Britain. What better holiday fare, therefore, than a large-scale stage adaptation on the National Theater’s Olivier stage? Kendall Feaver, whose feisty “Alma Mater” ran over the summer at the Almeida, adapts, and Katy Rudd directs a cast that includes the dancer Cordelia Braithwaite and two-time Olivier Award-winner Jenny Galloway. Runs Nov. 23 through Feb. 22 at the National Theater.
Star vehicles
The Fear of 13
Will Adrien Brody’s onscreen intensity translate to the stage? We’ll find out when the Oscar-winning star of “The Pianist” makes his London stage debut in this world premiere from the American writer Lindsey Ferrentino about a man who spent 22 years wrongfully convicted on death row. Justin Martin, who steered the Jodie Comer play “Prima Facie” to success in London and then Broadway, directs. Runs Oct. 4 through Nov. 30 at the Donmar Warehouse.
Oedipus
The director Robert Icke’s contemporary update of Sophocles’ tragedy has been seen in Dutch in Amsterdam and Edinburgh. It now gets an English-language airing, with Mark Strong as the title character, seen here as a political hopeful hurtling toward catastrophe. The wonderful Lesley Manville co-stars as Jocasta: Oedipus’s wife and, yes, his mother. Count this production as one of many contributing to an unusually grown-up London theater season. Runs Oct. 4 through Jan. 4 at Wyndham’s Theater.
The Duchess [of Malfi]
John Webster’s blood-soaked Jacobean thriller gets a contemporary makeover from the Scottish adapter-director Zinnie Harris that was first seen in Edinburgh in 2019. Its West End version returns Jodie Whittaker to the stage in the title role. She is one of three actors to have played Doctor Who who will be treading the boards in London this season: Ncuti Gatwa (“The Importance of Being Earnest”) and David Tennant (“Macbeth”) are the others. Runs Oct. 5 through Dec. 20 at the Trafalgar Theater.
Macbeth
David Tennant’s lean, intense, low-voiced Macbeth caused a sensation last season at the intimate Donmar Warehouse, where the director Max Webster’s binaural production required audience members to don headphones. It looks set to be a sellout once again in its West End transfer, a testament to Tennant’s star wattage and to the appeal of his tantalizing Lady Macbeth, Cush Jumbo, who has a TV following from shows like “The Good Wife.” Runs Oct. 1 through Dec. 14 at the Harold Pinter Theater.
Barcelona
The American playwright Bess Wohl had a terrific showing at the Old Vic in 2021 with her play “Camp Siegfried.” She returns this season with a new two-hander, set in the Spanish city of the title and starring “Emily in Paris” alumna Lily Collins as an American tourist who falls for a Spaniard played by Álvaro Morte. Runs Oct. 21 through Jan. 11 at the Duke of York’s Theater.
The Tempest
It takes a major name to sell out the Theater Royal, Drury Lane: At nearly 2,200 seats, it’s one of London’s largest auditoriums. But the director Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Boulevard”) may have found such a person in Sigourney Weaver, who will play Shakespeare’s island-dwelling Prospero in what looks set to be the prestige entry of the Christmas season. The brilliant performer Mason Alexander Park, another visiting American, plays Ariel. Runs Dec. 7 through Feb. 1, 2025 at Theater Royal, Drury Lane.
More Shakespeare
The Comedy of Errors
Unfettered joy is rare these days, but that’s the feeling imparted by Sean Holmes and Naeem Hayat’s production of this earliest and shortest Shakespeare comedy. (The show clocks in at less than two hours, no intermission.) Telling of two sets of identical twins separated at birth yet reunited in time for a buoyant finish, it is madcap and mirthful, and sometimes unexpectedly moving. The cast, including Sam Swann and Martin Quinn as genuine look-alike siblings, appears to be having an absolute ball. The audience does, too. In repertory through Oct. 27 at Shakespeare’s Globe.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
There’s something wonderful about watching a performer extend their range, and that helps account for the popularity of this Royal Shakespeare Company production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in which the actor-comedian Mathew Baynton (“Horrible Histories”) plays Bottom. In this show, his talent for clowning and funny voices coexists with a natural command of classical verse. Critics also praised the director Eleanor Rhode for refreshing this most familiar of Shakespeare comedies when her version premiered earlier this year in Stratford-upon-Avon. Runs Dec. 3 through Jan. 18, 2025, at the Barbican Theater.
Coriolanus
Shakespeare’s high-minded Roman general is all military-minded testosterone until he finds himself in the company of his mother, Volumnia, who brings out the vulnerable man-child in her warrior son. On the biggest stage at the National Theater, the director Lyndsey Turner assembles a large cast led by David Oyelowo in the title role and with the majestic Pamela Nomvete as his strong-willed mother. Runs through Nov. 9 at the National Theater.
Musicals
Why Am I So Single?
What do you do for an encore? Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, the Tony-winning songwriting team behind the internationally acclaimed, history-themed “Six,” have opted to tell the story of their own friendship in song. Moss doubles as the director of a show that needs some shaping, but no one can dispute the power of its clarion-voiced leads, Leesa Tulley and Jo Foster, playing alter egos of the musical’s creators. Running at the Garrick Theater.
A Face in the Crowd
Early reviews have been mixed for the director Kwame Kwei-Armah’s last outing as artistic director of the Young Vic, but the acclaim has been unanimous for the show’s leading man, Ramin Karimloo. He plays the populist tunesmith, Lonesome Rhodes — Andy Griffith’s part in the 1957 Elia Kazan film that is the show’s source. Anoushka Lucas, previously seen in “Oklahoma!” at the same address, co-stars as a radio producer who guides Lonesome on a path toward stardom but regrets it when he turns into a monster. Runs through Nov. 9 at the Young Vic.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This transporting adaptation of the 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald story suggests that British musicals are alive and well. Many will know the story best from the 2008 Brad Pitt film, but Jethro Compton and Darren Clark’s imaginative take on the time-bending narrative shifts the location to Cornwall in southern England. The Olivier winner John Dagleish takes on the title role. Runs Oct. 10 through Feb. 15, 2025, at the Ambassadors Theater.
The Devil Wears Prada
It will be second time lucky, all being well, for this stage musical adaptation of the 2006 film, which got a frosty reception in an earlier iteration in Chicago two summers ago. Elton John is still the composer, but a new cast is led by Vanessa Williams, inheriting Meryl Streep’s screen role as the stern and stylish Miranda Priestly. Jerry Mitchell, feted for such shows as “Hairspray” and “Legally Blonde,” is the director-choreographer. Runs from Oct. 24 at the Dominion Theater.
New writing
Shifters
The British Congolese writer Benedict Lombe won the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female playwrights in 2022 with her debut play “Lava,” which played at the small but significant Bush Theater in West London. Her sophomore play “Shifters” started out there, too, before transferring to the West End. A two-hander that shuttles back and forth in time, it features a sexy and soulful cast of two in Tosin Cole and Heather Agyepong. The fast-rising Lynette Linton is the director of both this and “Barcelona.” Through Oct. 12 at the Duke of York’s Theater.
Giant
Can you separate the artist from his art? That’s the question in the new Mark Rosenblatt play “Giant,” the most eagerly awaited new play of the London season. Exploring Roald Dahl’s avowed antisemitism at the moment the popular children’s book author was publishing “The Witches,” the production reunites the director Nicholas Hytner and his American leading man, John Lithgow (“Sweet Smell of Success”). A mighty supporting cast includes Elliot Levey, Rachael Stirling and Romola Garai. Through Nov. 16 at the Royal Court.
A Tupperware of Ashes
The English comedian and writer Meera Syal brings instant luster to this new work from the prolific playwright Tanika Gupta, telling of a Michelin-starred chef in faltering health. The family drama is directed by Pooja Ghai, who leads the Tamasha Theater Company, devoted to showcasing British artists of color. Runs through Nov. 16 at the National Theater.
Brace Brace
In a standout season that includes “Giant” on its main stage, the Royal Court is also premiering a new play by Oli Forsyth in its studio theater that centers on the survivors of a plane hijacking. A notably starry cast for such a small venue is headed by Phil Dunster, better-known as Jamie Tartt Jr. on “Ted Lasso,” and Anjana Vasan, who won an Olivier in 2023 for “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Runs Oct. 3 through Nov. 9 at the Royal Court.
Reykjavik
It’s been 13 years since the deliriously funny “One Man, Two Guvnors” brought the playwright Richard Bean to mainstream attention in London and later on Broadway. He’s back this season with a new play set in 1975 among the world of Icelandic trawler fishermen: a far cry, it would seem, from the commedia dell-arte high jinks of his previous hit. The director Emily Burns, who has been making an assured name for herself in recent years at the National, here makes her Hampstead Theater debut. Runs Oct. 18 through Nov. 23 at the Hampstead Theater.
Weird and wonderful
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit
The idea behind Nassim Soleimanpour’s 2011 play is a startling one: A different actor approaches the script cold each night and performs it just once. The same words land entirely differently each time, and the actors who have signed on are a who’s who of the English (and even American) stage: Jonathan Pryce, Elizabeth McGovern, Rory Kinnear, Michael Sheen and Stockard Channing, to name just a handful. The promotional material promises the show will “make the viewer feel uncomfortable.” Lighthearted, this is surely not. Runs Oct. 1 through Nov. 9 at @sohoplace.
Beryl Cook: A Private View
Many plays are performed by their authors, but this is the first I’ve come across to be acted, written and painted by its creator. That makes sense given the subject: the British artist Beryl Cook whose bawdy canvases of full-figured people going about their daily lives — sometimes naked — are hugely popular in Britain (though little known elsewhere). Over the course of each 75-minute show, its creator Kara Wilson will produce an oil painting in the style of Cook that will be available to buy. Runs Oct. 1 through Oct. 26 at the Finborough Theater.
The post What to See on London Stages This Fall appeared first on New York Times.
