Grace Pervades

Theatre Royal Haymarket
Haymarket, London SW1Y 4HT

This is a new play by David Hare about the great Victorian theatre legends Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. It opens at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 24 April. Director Jeremy Herrin premiered the production last summer at Theatre Royal Bath, with Ralph Fiennes as Irving and Miranda Raison as Terry. This star pairing transfers to the West End, making it one of the major runs of the London season.

No one ever knew for certain whether Irving and Terry were romantically involved. One thing, however, is undeniable: their relationship changed theatre forever. Grace Pervades belongs to one of the most beloved English genres — theatre about theatre.

After its Bath premiere, critics were lavish in their praise of Fiennes and Raison. The play itself, however, raised questions: too many historical strands, too many themes. Their relationship, the history of Victorian theatre, feminism, ageing, fame — everything at once. Some felt there was enough material here for five plays, and that Hare perhaps overreached, making it demanding to follow.

It almost feels like a student’s lament before exams: how are we supposed to know all this? — even though, in theory, every educated person should. Running alongside is the story of young Edward Gordon Craig — future actor, designer, writer, and pioneer of theatrical symbolism — whose life alone could fill several plays.

And yet the writing is brilliant (would one expect anything less from Hare?), and both Fiennes and Raison rise to it magnificently. Grace Pervades is a tender, elegant love letter to theatre — and absolutely a must-see. It is also very, very beautiful: the design and costumes are precise and gloriously, unapologetically theatrical.

Please Please Me

Kiln Theatre
269 Kilburn High Rd, London NW6 7JR

Kiln Theatre is known for its socially engaged work, often exploring themes of migration and identity. Playwright Tom Wright — who wrote Undetectable (2022), a two-hander about HIV, fear and love — now brings a new play about Brian Epstein.

The cultural context is clear: London in the early 1960s, The Beatles and their meteoric rise. Please Please Me, of course, is the Beatles’ debut album; Epstein was their manager — the “fifth Beatle”.

This is a generation trying to break free from post-war gloom, discovering new music and new ways of living. Director Amit Sharma has long worked in inclusive theatre, and here Epstein’s story becomes, above all, the story of being “other” in the 1960s — of someone who struggles to belong.

Epstein is played by Calam Lynch (known to many as Theo in Bridgerton — remember the printer’s assistant? Romantic, idealistic, brave — that’s him).

This is not a Beatles biopic — although we do meet John and Cynthia. The band’s success serves as a backdrop for a deeply personal story about Epstein: his loneliness, and what queer identity meant in the 1960s. In short, a drama about power, sex and identity.

One lingering question: how will Kiln handle the Beatles’ music? The rights are notoriously difficult and expensive — so it’s entirely possible there won’t be any songs at all.

Romeo & Juliet

Harold Pinter Theatre
Panton St, London SW1Y 4DN

Director Robert Icke first staged Shakespeare’s tragedy in 2012, and now returns to it fourteen years later — older, and perhaps with a different perspective on life (not least as a parent). Yet the two productions echo each other.

For Icke, this is not fate set in stone, but a chain of accidents leading to tragedy. Destiny is not carved in tablets — it is a series of small decisions.

The new production bears all the hallmarks of Icke’s style: balancing on the edge of comedy and drama, only to collapse into tragedy through a cascade of chance events.

Juliet is played by Sadie Sink (Max in Stranger Things): fiery, sparkling, alive — truly making the classic feel contemporary. She’s a remarkable actress — just think of her Ellie in The Whale. Or the short film All Too Well, directed by Taylor Swift — Sink is magnetic even in the briefest scenes. A flame-haired Juliet — though her Romeo there was perhaps less convincing.

Here, Romeo is played by Noah Jupe — youthful, intense, open-hearted. The kind of sincerity that feels almost impossible in our post-post-meta world — and yet Jupe seems entirely unbothered by such concerns.

Together, Sink and Jupe create a chemistry that erupts like a sudden volcano.

And a word for Mercutio: Kasper Hilton-Hille, a graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and winner of Best Newcomer at the Off West End Awards (2024) for That Face at the Orange Tree Theatre. He was also recently in Dealer’s Choice at the Donmar Warehouse.

Dracula

Noël Coward Theatre
85–88 St Martin’s Ln, London WC2N 4AU

With this production, director Kip Williams completes his “gothic trilogy”. It began with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in Sydney (2022), followed by The Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook, and now concludes with Dracula.

All three productions use his signature technology: live cameras on stage, close-ups projected onto screens, the fusion of theatre and cinema.

At the Noël Coward Theatre, Dracula is played by Cynthia Erivo — yes, that Cynthia Erivo (also known as Elphaba in Wicked). A year ago she was singing at the Hollywood Bowl; now she performs every role in Dracula.

Yes — it’s a one-woman show. And Erivo is both queen and demon. The result is hypnotic, demanding, and utterly mesmerising. And yes — frightening. The cameras heighten the intimacy, and her rapid transformations — voice, body, energy — are visible almost under a microscope. This is intellectual horror, and a very intense theatrical experience.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Old Vic
103 The Cut, London SE1 8NB

«This is how society deals with those who are different», — wrote Ken Kesey in his great novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey conceived the book while working as a night orderly in a psychiatric ward. He believed the problem was not the patients, but the society that rejected them — punishing «difference».

Published in 1962, the novel became an instant success. Thirteen years later, Milos Forman adapted it into a legendary film starring Jack Nicholson as McMurphy. You remember, don’t you? His defiance disrupts the system and awakens something long suppressed in the patients — stripped of dignity, voice and self-expression under the iron rule of Nurse Ratched, left with nothing but fear. McMurphy’s rebellion reminds them what it means to speak — and to be free.

Adapted for the stage by Dale Wasserman, this new production by Clint Dyer reframes the story as a powerful exploration of colonialism. How do systems designed to silence dissent actually work? Uncomfortable? Good. You’re supposed to watch.

McMurphy is played by Aaron Pierre, with Michelle Gomez as Nurse Ratched — cold, sarcastic, and genuinely threatening. Life, play, music, dance — set against control and violence. Pierre is a strikingly unexpected McMurphy: model-handsome, composed, intelligent, with a mesmerising voice (he voiced Mufasa in Mufasa: The Lion King). This is clearly not a traditional Cuckoo’s Nest, but a more political, contemporary interpretation — with very precise casting.