London’s theatres are experiencing a classic season.
If you call me any evening over the next few weeks, you’re likely to go straight to voicemail: there are so many exciting productions coming up (and currently on) that every night is theatre night.
Tonight is Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Barbican, but it’s no dry, by-the-book production – instead, Brazilian company Nos do Morro (‘we from the hillside’) pack it with energy and turn a love triangle into a musical, physical feat. The company has won countless prizes in Brazil and are ones to watch.
From Brazil to Russia (sort of). Peepolykus (prounounced: people like us) bring Spyski! to the Lyric. Subtitled ‘The importance of being honest’, the play is an anarchic comedy about the mysterious tea-poisoning of a Russian dissident. Entirely fictional, of course. Peepolykus wring the comedy out of anything, so expect the serious and humorous to meet, possibly ending in some kind of explosion.
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A Disappearing Number reappears at the Barbican next week, bringing back its moving mix of love, maths and philosophy, explored in a haunting production which won every major Best Play award. Complicite, the company behind it, are major stars of British theatre, and if the play is not already sold out, it soon will be. Book now.
If star power is somewhat lacking in these three, have no fear – Ralph Fiennes takes the stage once more, after his turn earlier this year in God of Carnage. There is still carnage aplenty, as he’s playing Oedipus at the National. His performance is likely to be impetuous, chilling and masterful.
With the Donmar’s season at the Wyndham continuing – Kenneth Branagh is still Ivanov, in possibly the best show of the year, and Derek Jacobi will be in Twelfth Night – and a host of smaller productions, there is no excuse not to switch off your phone and settle down on the velvet.
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