{"id":69255,"date":"2026-11-10T12:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T12:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/?p=69255"},"modified":"2026-11-10T12:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T12:33:19","slug":"let-s-sing-cry-and-laugh-london-theatre-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/let-s-sing-cry-and-laugh-london-theatre-in-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Sing, Cry and Laugh! London Theatre in November"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lives of Others<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Adelphi Theatre
409\u2013412 Strand, London, United Kingdom, WC2R 0NS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by nederlander<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the first stage adaptation of the celebrated film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others, 2006). It was the feature debut of writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, and it won him an Oscar. Its exploration of surveillance and repression in East Germany is not merely a political thriller, but a story about an artist under pressure, about art itself, and about a person’s capacity to change. In East Berlin in 1984, playwright Georg Dreyman and his lover, the celebrated actress Christa-Maria Sieland, are placed under round-the-clock secret surveillance by Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler. Fanatically loyal to the regime, he listens in on their conversations, but doubts gradually begin to creep into his mind\u2026 In the film, so much depends on the tiniest facial expressions, silences and close-ups, which posed an enormous challenge for the actors and director Robert Icke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Icke has never been one to shy away from difficulties: he invents them, then takes enormous pleasure in solving them. His productions are known for their visual flair as well as their psychological precision, taut pace and bold reimaginings of the classics. The Lives of Others boasts a splendid trio: Keira Knightley as Christa-Maria (marking her return to the London stage after a long absence), Stephen Dillane as officer Wiesler, and Luke Thompson as the playwright Dreyman. The original score, adding to the dramatic tension, is by the celebrated neoclassical composer Max Richter. Hildegard Bechtler’s inventive set, with its revolving rooms, ratchets up the tension still further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wiesler, invisible to the two people he is watching, is physically present beside them on stage. Stephen Dillane is one of the production’s great successes. Thompson has the hardest job: he helps weave the fabric of the story, but the central drama is not his to play. Besides, he has to contend with the image of the handsome airhead from Bridgerton. Let us not forget, though, that Thompson is a highly accomplished stage actor: a RADA graduate, he has appeared in Icke’s Oresteia and Hamlet, as well as A Little Life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cherry Orchard<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Harold Pinter Theatre
6 Panton Street, London, United Kingdom, SW1Y 4DN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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haPhoto by roldpintertheatre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard in 1903, shortly before his death. He insisted that he had written a comedy, almost a farce, while Stanislavski saw it as a tragedy about the passing of an age. This disagreement seems to lie at the heart of director Ian Rickson’s new production. The adaptation is by Conor McPherson, author of The Weir and the Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country (which we wrote about here). A bitter cocktail of everyday speech, black humour and a sense of impending catastrophe is his trademark. In The Cherry Orchard, McPherson has noticeably modernised the language, introduced some fairly salty expressions and turned up the humour considerably. The result is a Chekhov unafraid of a dirty joke and positively happy to hear the audience roar with laughter, while still speaking of a society’s demise and the turning of a historical age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the story we all remember: landowner Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya returns from Paris to the family estate, which is about to be sold to pay off debts. The famous cherry orchard is under threat too \u2014 a symbol of the family’s childhood, the very essence of its memories and of useless luxury. Lopakhin, a merchant whose father was a serf, proposes a plan to save the situation: cut down the orchard and build holiday cottages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristin Scott Thomas is particularly fascinating as Ranevskaya. In 2008, she won an Olivier Award for playing Arkadina in Rickson’s The Seagull, and now here she is as Ranevskaya: nervous, charming and helpless. Yet she has both feminine magnetism and the magnetism of a consummate performer. She holds the audience spellbound like Kaa the snake hypnotising the monkeys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her opposite number, Stephen Mangan (Lopakhin), is familiar to a wider audience from Episodes and The Split. There is something extraordinary about the drama of his performance \u2014 not theatrical, exactly, but somehow beyond the stage. He is a nervous, awkward, hopeless misfit, a white clown who is funny and tragic at once. Yes, there are jokes galore here, and the tragedy of Chekhov’s play hides behind them, just as the Ranevsky family’s financial troubles hide behind the white blossom of the cherry trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The production is beautiful, funny and clever, but the audience has to do some work to reach its tragic undercurrent. In short, no reverential solemnity and no tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Afronauts<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Royal Court
Sloane Square, London, United Kingdom, SW1W 8AS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a0Photo by royalcourttheatre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1964, Zambia has only just gained independence, while the United States and the Soviet Union are competing for supremacy in space. An ordinary Zambian schoolteacher has a thought: why, exactly, should Africa be left out of the race? He assembles a small team of enthusiasts and begins training them for a flight to the Moon. The play is based on the real story of Edward Makuka Nkoloso’s Zambian space programme. Don’t expect a documentary reconstruction, though: the idea of making the space race an extension of the struggle for independence is wonderfully theatrical. The result is a political parable, a comedy about desperate dreamers and a tender story about human dignity. British playwright Ryan Calais Cameron is one of the most prominent voices in contemporary Black British theatre. (Remember Retrograde, his story about the young Sidney Poitier and the racial compromises of 1950s Hollywood?) In The Afronauts, he turns to science fiction, Afrofuturism and the history of decolonisation. Cameron himself describes the play as a love letter to all the dreamers who left no trace in the history books. There are two directors here: Cameron himself works in tandem with Monique Touko. Touko (whose credits include Marie and Rosetta and G at the Royal Court) knows how to work with an ensemble, rhythm and cultural identity, while Cameron brings his distinctive voice as a playwright. The star attraction is Lucian Msamati, who plays Edward. Msamati is a magnificent stage actor who has played Salieri in Amadeus and is known for Game of Thrones, Slow Horses and Conclave. South African actress Ama Qamata, star of the Netflix series Blood & Water, makes her British stage debut as Mata.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dogstar<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Hampstead Theatre
Eton Avenue, London, United Kingdom, NW3 3EU<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by hampsteadtheatre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is a new play by Daisy Hall, a finalist for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Playwriting. Her debut, Bellringers, staged at Hampstead Downstairs in 2024, was a real discovery: an intimate story of two bell-ringers facing the possible end of the world, combining apocalyptic horror, absurdity and black comedy. Dogstar is her second play, commissioned by Hampstead Theatre after the success of the first. Hall has a remarkably consistent interest in people trapped in desperate, extreme situations. In the Arctic in the mid-nineteenth century, the whaling ship Dogstar has been stuck fast in the ice for months. Most of the crew are dead; the survivors are suffering from scurvy and the endless polar night. Mutiny is brewing. Then everyone starts seeing something strange. These visions defy explanation. Illness? Hallucinations? Or an actual miracle? Hall is less interested in maritime matters than in humanity’s attempts to find meaning in life even amid catastrophe. Mystery, suspense, the supernatural \u2014 all aboard an old ship trapped in the ice, all on a tiny stage, and all without an interval. Director Lucy Morrison spent many years working at the Royal Court and has staged The Animal Kingdom, Akedah and, more recently, Personal Values at Hampstead Theatre. She also has extensive experience with new writing. There are just three actors on stage: Justin Edwards (Babben), familiar from The Ferryman and the satirical television series The Thick of It; Abdul Jalloh (Sam), a very young actor who graduated from RADA in 2026; and Adam Rojko Vega (Gorey), whose screen credits include The Batman (2022), the miniseries We Were the Lucky Ones (2024) and the television film Mystery Island: Winner Takes All. His stage work includes On the War at the Royal Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRIDE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Bridge Theatre
3 Potters Fields Park, London, United Kingdom, SE1 2SG<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by bridgetheatre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Screenwriter Stephen Beresford won a BAFTA for the film of the same name \u2014 surely you remember the one in which Bill Nighy played a quiet, reserved Welsh miner helped by London activists. The cast also included Imelda Staunton, Andrew Scott and Dominic West. This year, members of the original film cast took part in a special video introducing the musical’s new company at the Bridge Theatre. Director Matthew Warchus, the former artistic director of the Old Vic and the man behind Matilda the Musical and Groundhog Day, knows how to turn a socially significant story into a show with irresistible emotional appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Beresford is first and foremost a playwright, the author of The Last of the Haussmans and Three Kings. For the stage version of PRIDE, he reunited with the film’s director, Matthew Warchus. Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde wrote the music, blending disco, pop, rock and the Welsh choral tradition. The composers are sometimes criticised for making the music sound too generic for the 1980s, but one thing is worth noting: this is not a jukebox musical built from existing eighties hits, but an original score that evokes the period stylistically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So: Thatcher’s Britain, 1984. The miners’ strike. Activist Mark Ashton establishes Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). Young gay men and lesbians in London raise money for mining families in South Wales. At first, most of the miners regard them with suspicion, to put it mildly, but against all expectations a genuine friendship grows between two communities, each facing hostility and prejudice from society. There is no overt tragedy or high drama here, but there is a big, noisy, funny and deeply moving comedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is already PRIDE’s third incarnation: it premiered in Cardiff, moved to London’s South Bank, and then transferred from the National Theatre to the Bridge Theatre. An unusual trajectory for a contemporary stage production, to put it mildly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the original cast is making the move to the Bridge Theatre, including Samuel Barnett as Jonathan (widely singled out as the production’s real revelation). There are some significant changes, though: Mark Ashton is now played by Ryan Kopel (who played Joshua in We Had a World at Hampstead Theatre and appeared in House of the Dragon as Ser Aeron Bracken). A blend of historical memory, theatrical imagination, deeply human humour and that wonderful feeling when two seemingly incompatible communities become friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Day<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Garrick Theatre
2 Charing Cross Road, London, United Kingdom, WC2H 0HH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by onedaymusical<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

David Nicholls is famous for One Day, the novel in which we follow its characters on the same calendar date over a succession of years, as well as for books such as Starter for Ten and Us. He is also a screenwriter: his credits include adaptations of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. Patrick Melrose earned him an Emmy nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Day became an international bestseller and has been adapted for the screen twice; one of those adaptations starred Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. And now, at last, it has become a musical. Scottish playwright David Greig, author of The Events, Midsummer and The Suppliant Women, adapted the story for the stage. The music and lyrics are by the American duo JOHNNYSWIM, whose sound blends folk, pop, soul and elements of country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew meet on 15 July 1988, on the night of their graduation from the University of Edinburgh. Each successive scene shows what is happening in their lives on 15 July of another year. How many more years will they waste before they finally understand one very, very important thing?..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The musical is directed by Max Webster, the man behind the brilliant Life of Pi and Macbeth with David Tennant. For the Edinburgh premiere, Webster transformed the historic Lyceum into an unusual space, with audiences sitting on both sides of the stage, cabaret tables and a revolving platform. How this arrangement will translate to the Garrick’s traditional auditorium is a big question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dexter is played by Jamie Muscato, star of Heathers, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. He also received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. Emma is played by Sharon Rose, known for Hamilton and Sylvia. Both are transferring from the Edinburgh production to London \u2014 and in Edinburgh the pair won over audiences and critics alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November is a strange month, caught between Halloween and Christmas, when the city is already slipping into its pre-festive frenzy but people are still willing to venture out for something other than Christmas fairy tales, pantos and office parties. We’ve picked six fabulous productions that certainly won’t leave you bored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":69256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"type_post":[184],"column":[185],"class_list":["post-69255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","column-letters-from-the-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69263,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69255\/revisions\/69263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69255"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=69255"},{"taxonomy":"column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/column?post=69255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}