Equus
Trafalgar Studios 6th July – 7th September
Award winning director Ned Bennett’s bold revival of Peter Shaffer’s iconic psychological thriller Equus is transfering to the West End this summer, following its hugely successful tour.
The five star production received unprecedented critical acclaim when it opened, with The Sunday Times describing it as “a dazzling revival” and The Observer professing “You will not see a better production of this masterpiece”.
Inspired by a true story, Equus is a gripping and transfixing psychological thriller which sets out to explore the complex relationships between devotion, myth and sexuality. When teenager Alan Strang’s pathological fascination leads him to blind six horses in a Hampshire stable, psychiatrist Dr. Martin Dysart is tasked with uncovering the motive behind the boy’s violent act.
Blues In The Night
Kiln Theatre 18th July – 7th September
Susie McKenna directs Sharon D Clarke (The Lady), Debbie Kurup (The Woman), Clive Rowe (The Man) and Gemma Sutton (The Girl) the first major London revival in 30 years.
The Olivier and Tony Award nominated musical is a scorching compilation of 26 hot and torchy blues numbers that frame the lives and loves of four residents of a downtown hotel. Featuring soul-filled songs by blues and jazz icons Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen and many more, this will be a sizzling night to remember.
FIVER
Southwark Playhouse 3rd July – 20th July
FIVER follows the story of a humble £5 note as it passes through the hands and pockets of different people in London. Often unnoticed and obviously unaware, the fiver is present for significant moments in each person’s life – from an appreciation of their skills as a street performer, the start or end of relationships to the simple realisation that they can afford a bed for the night.
It stars Hiba Elchikhe, Dan Buckley, Luke Bayer, Aoife Clesham and Alex James Ellison.
The Last Song of Oliver Sipple
King’s Head Theatre 13th – 14th July
The Last Song of Oliver Sipple – a new play telling the true story of an unknown gay hero is coming to the London stage.
In 1975, Oliver Sipple grabbed the arm of Sara Jane Moore as she fired at President Gerald Ford. His heroic act spared a nation the trauma of another presidential assassination but after being outed in the press, Sipple was not celebrated for his actions.
Instead, he found his privacy invaded and a rift opened with his family, who had been unaware of his sexuality.
The Last Song of Oliver Sipple premieres at the King’s Head in Islington on July 13 and 14 as part of the Playmill festival of new writing. It is written by OFFIE nominated playwright David Hendon, directed by Peter Taylor and stars Jackson Pentland as Sipple.
The Girl on The Train
Duke of York’s 23rd July – 17th August
The Girl on the Train starring Samantha Womack as Rachel Watson will transfer to London’s Duke of York’s Theatre, following a successful tour.
The gripping thriller, based on the internationally acclaimed number one best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins and the Dreamworks film has been breaking box office records and playing to packed houses on a major tour since the beginning of the year.
Samantha plays Rachel Watson who longs for a different life. Her only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears. When Rachel learns that the woman she’s been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.
Games for Lovers
The Vaults 12th July – 25th August
Four millennials looking for sex, love and a well-located flat find themselves caught in a complex game of rivalry, desire and seduction. As the cost of happiness soars, how can they negotiate the new rules of modern relationships and win the game of love?
The cast is Calum Callaghan (Black Mirror and Mr Selfridge), Evanna Lynch (Disco Pigs in the West End, Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films), Tessie Orange-Turner (Masterpieces at the Finborough and Casualty) and Billy Postlethwaite (Chernobyl on Sky Atlantic, The Madness of George III at Nottingham Playhouse).
The auditorium includes front row double-seat sofa ‘Love Seats’ allowing you to get closest to the action.
Whodunnit [Unrehearsed]
Park Theatre 15th July – 21st July
Every night, a different guest performer will step onstage to join the rehearsed ensemble of a scripted murder mystery play, having attended no rehearsals, read no script, nor received any direction. Armed only with a hidden earpiece to receive instructions, they will endeavour to solve the crime in real time.
An isolated manor, a storm brewing and a stranger at the door. The clichés flow as freely as the suspicious liquor in the library, but this murder mystery spoof has one hell of a twist.
Whodunnit [Unrehearsed] not only features the voices of Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench, but also a different celebrity in each performance stepping in as the Inspector, without any rehearsal and without ever having seen the script.
The Night of The Iguana
Noel Coward Theatre 6th July – 28th September
Clive Owen returns to the West End for the first time in 18 years to play the Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon in The Night Of The Iguana, in a new production directed by James Macdonald.
Golden Globe-winner Owen (Closer, Children of Men) will be joined by Lia Williams (The Crown, Mary Stuart) as Hannah Jelkes, Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad) as Maxine Faulk and Julian Glover (Game of Thrones) as Nonno.
In the strange limbo of 1940, on a dilapidated hotel verandah perched high in a rainforest above the west coast of Mexico, a group of lost souls collide – a defrocked priest turned tourist guide, the grieving widow who runs the hotel, a family of jubilant Nazis… and an itinerant portrait artist with her 97 year old poet grandfather. The result is an epic battle between flesh and spirit, captivity and freedom, art and faith – heightened by the arrival of a tropical rain-storm.
The Bridges of Madison County
Menier Chocolate Factory 12th July – 14th September
The UK première of the musical of Robert James Waller’s bestselling novel The Bridges of Madison County in a new staging by Trevor Nunn and starring Jenna Russell.
Francesca is an Italian immigrant housewife living a happy existence on a farm in the American Midwest. However, when her family go off to the Iowa State Fair, she meets Robert Kincaid, a National Geographic photographer on assignment filming bridges in the area. Their initial friendship develops into a brief but passionate affair which has devastating consequences on all of their lives.
The View UpStairs
Soho Theatre 18th July – 31st August
The European premiere of new LGBTQ+ musical The View Upstairs, comes to Soho Theatre.
The musical opens in present day when Wes, a young fashion designer buys an abandoned space, not realising this had been the UpStairs Lounge, a vibrant ’70s gay bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which, in 1973, was burned down in an arson attack, killing 32 people, and making it the worst attack on the LGBTQ+ community until the 2016 shooting at The Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Andy Mientus, Tyrone Huntley, Declan Bennett, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, Cedric Neal and John Partridge lead the incredible cast.
