<img src='' title='Event Category: Theatre' alt='' id='templ_icon_' width='' height='' /> Event Category: Theatre

The Pirates of Penzance

Presented by Regan De Wynter Williams Productions

The Award-winning show makes a welcome return to the UK this autumn.

In this maddest of times let two of Britain’s barmiest storytellers, Gilbert and Sullivan take you on an adventure with their much-loved tale of…The Pirates of Penzance. Acclaimed Director Sasha Regan (Frank’s Closet, The Mikado, HMS Pinafore) has an ability to bring out the inherent humour and fun creating an award-winning, all-male and exquisitely funny new take on the classic.

It makes a welcome return to the UK this Autumn. Pure joy!

Thom Gunn: The Man With Night Sweats

Presented by Dead Poets Live

2024 marks the twentieth anniversary of Thom Gunn’s death. The Man with Night Sweats, to many readers Gunn’s finest and most moving collection, addresses the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and includes some of the most devastating elegies in English poetry. But The Man with Night Sweats is also, very specifically and lovingly, a vivid portrait of city life in San Francisco, the gay community of that time, and the friends and lovers who made up Gunn’s family, and who were taken by the disease.

The show will trace Gunn’s development from the rigorous discipline of his beginnings, through the LSD-loosened free verse of the 60s and early 70s to the humane and personal achievement of The Man with Night Sweats.

Thom Gunn will be played by Rupert Everett.

Rupert Everett is a BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated actor, a director and an author, responsible for the screenplay of The Happy Prince as well as three immortal memoirs, including Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins. His leading roles on screen have included the multi award-winning film My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, Dance With A Stranger, The Happy Prince, Adult Material, My Policeman, Funny Woman and, most recently, Napoleon. His stage roles have included Blithe Spirit and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway, Pygmalion and The Judas Kiss in the West End, Uncle Vanya in the Theatre Royal Bath, Amadeus at Chichester and, most recently, also at the Theatre Royal, A Voyage Round My Father.

Posting Letters to the Moon

Presented by Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams

A romantic, funny and very touching portrait of life during the second World War featuring readings of letters between Oscar-nominated actress Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) and her explorer and writer husband Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming) posted to India and the Far East during the war working for Military Intelligence.

Not only are the letters highly engaging, but they also provide a fascinating historical insight into that time of true austerity and fearfulness.

‘… simply spellbinding performance…revealing an abundance of love and affection between ordinary people caught in extraordinary times… a theatrical gem’ British Theatre Guide

The letters are read by their daughter Lucy Fleming (Love Sarah, Miranda in The Archers) and her husband Simon Williams (Justin in The Archers, EastEnders, Upstairs Downstairs) and give an insight into a young mother’s life coping during the war and tell of Celia Johnson’s experience of filming with Noel Coward, David Lean and her thoughts while making the classic film Brief Encounter in 1945.

www.postingletterstothemoon.com

Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England

Joshua Beaumont and Matthew Emeny present The Roxy Dog production

 

It’s the EURO 2020 Final at Wembley and Billy’s gone viral for sticking a flare up his arse!

Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse For England is a blisteringly funny new play that comes to London directly from a sell-out, five-star Edinburgh Festival run. Written and performed by Alex Hill, it asks what it means to belong to a club that you live for.

Billy and his best mate Adam are die-hard football fans. It’s how they spend every weekend, without fail, it’s their escape, their religion and their life. But when they encounter a new group of mates, they start to take their support one step further.

Photo credit: Rah Petherbridge

Age guidance: 18+

The War of the Worlds

Presented by National Youth Theatre

Inspired by H.G. Wells’ sci-fi novel and Orson Welles’ classic radio play, this legendary science fiction thriller is playfully reimagined for our era of Fake News and ‘alternative facts.’ The internet has replaced the radio as the medium through which we make sense of the world. We remain just as susceptible … 

Award-winning theatre company Rhum and Clay devised the Offie-nominated and critically acclaimed The War of The Worlds in 2019 with Olivier Award-nominated Isley Lynn. After selling out a five-week run in London and a four-week run in Edinburgh the show toured the UK and internationally to critical acclaim.

As we approach the 2024 US election and fake news continues to dominate the headlines The War of the Worlds is back in a new production in partnership with the NYT REP Company, featuring 18 of Britain’s most exciting young performers from around the UK. The National Youth Theatre return to Wilton’s Music Hall following previous successful collaborations on Zigger Zagger and Silence.
Originally Commissioned by New Diorama Theatre

Created by Rhum and Clay
And written with Isley Lynn, Most Promising Playwright at the 2023 Evening Standard Awards
Directed by Hamish Macdougall & Julian Spooner
Movement Director: Matt Wells
Starring Britain’s best young talent from the NYT REP Company

Age Guidance: 12+
Content information: Contains some strong language
Everyone is welcome at this performance, and we take a calm approach to movement and noise in the audience.

Photo credits: Jamie Macmillan & Luke Forsythe

 

Släpstick: Schërzo

Presented by Släpstick in association with Something For The Weekend

Chaplin meets Tchaikovsky

Internationally renowned musical clowns Släpstick present Schërzo, classical music as you’ve never experienced it before, fresh from a smash-hit run at Edinburgh Fringe and now at Wilton’s Music Hall!

scherzo [noun] joke, banter

Join Släpstick’s unique brand of mischief where physical theatre, world-class musicians and raucous humour collide.

Masterpieces from Brahms, Schubert, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin, and more, meet comedy heroes such as Victor Borge, Laurel & Hardy, Danny Kaye, and Charlie Chaplin.

Neither bewigged composer nor magnum opus is safe from buffoonery in this clownish concerto. Expect yodeling Schubert in a ventriloquism battle with Beethoven, a speed devil on the double bass and the popular ’21 masterpieces in 1 minute’.

Awarding-winning Släpstick have sold out concert halls from The Netherlands to New Zealand. Now Schërzo lands in London, following a world premiere at Edinburgh Fringe Festival and concerts in Germany and South Korea.

Presented by Släpstick in association with Something For The Weekend

Artwork credit: Corné van der Stelt

Photo credit: Duncan McGlynn

Red Sky at Sunrise: Laurie Lee in Words and Music

Presented by Hambletts

Laurie Lee’s extraordinary story told in a captivating weave of music and his own words!

Red Sky at Sunrise follows Lee through his much-loved Cider with Rosie trilogy, when he famously walked out of the Slad Valley one midsummer morning and ended up fighting with the International Brigades against Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War.

Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall, Endeavour) and Charlie Hamblett (Killing Eve, Ghosts, The Burning Girls) play the role of Laurie Lee older and younger, along with a rich array of other characters. Together, they celebrate Lee’s engaging humour, as well as his darker side, in a performance that has startling resonance with modern events.

Devised as a show by Judy Reaves, the text by Laurie Lee has been adapted by Deirdre Shields. A ‘breathtaking’ musical programme by Orchestra of the Swan devised by the Swan’s Artistic Director David Le Page, weaves around Lee’s writing, from the lush Gloucestershire countryside made famous in Cider with Rosie, to the arid landscapes of Spain. Featuring music from Vaughan Williams, Britten, Turina and De Falla, with Northampton-born guitarist Mark Ashford performing Albéniz and Spanish Romance

Following sell-out ★★★★★ performances at the RSC, in Malvern and Oxford, this ‘triumph’ comes to Wilton’s Music Hall for three performances only.

‘The two actors and their orchestra encompass Lee’s life completely. The unique use of Orchestra of the Swan is a brilliant and novel device. Red Sky is a triumph, its understated theatricality allowing this musically accompanied autobiography to truly resonate. It leaves us aching for the pastoral wonderland of Lee’s childhood, both the music and the words still echoing around my brain, reminding us of the beauty of life itself.’  Ox in a Box 

As You Like It

“…look into happiness through another man’s eyes!” The ancient Forest of Arden serves as the backdrop for Shakespeare’s most famous and quotable comedy. When Rosalind is banished from Duke Ferdinand’s court, new identities are explored with hilarious consequences. Music, mayhem and madness thrill as we are shown that “All the world’s a stage”.

Back for a fourth Summer Season, The Duke’s Theatre Co follow their acclaimed tours of Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night. Kevin Bennett, (Shakespeare’s Globe, Stratford Festival, Ontario) directs this brand-new tour that will visit fifty of the UK’s most magical venues including The Minack, Wilton’s Music Hall and Hever Castle. This As You Like It will live on in your memory “forever and a day”.