A Younger TheatreThere might be a chill in the air, but with the theatre season kicking off A Younger Theatre’s Artistic Director, Jake Orr, and Managing Editor, Eleanor Turney, give their recommendations for the best theatre for the end of September.
Jake recommends…
Things have been kicking off at Lyric Hammersmith this month as it launched its Secret Theatre Season. Show One is definitely worth looking at if you want a kick in the groin (in a good way), and I’m hearing good things about Show Two, too. FanSHEN’s Cheese, a bicycle powered performance on Oxford Street is tempting whilst Love N Stuff at Theatre Royal Stratford East is a real hoot by playwright Tanika Gupta.
Meanwhile at the National Theatre you can see the superb Edward II and book for the opening of the Tori Amos musical The Light Princess, whilst The Shed is still boasting some fantastic limited runs of emerging work. Grounded at the Gate Theatre has just been extended, and there are high hopes for The National Youth Theatre’s Tory Boyz as part of its West End Season.
Beyond London you can’t miss The Last Five Years at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, whilst in Leeds Sweeney Todd at the West Yorkshire Playhouse is bound to get the blood pumping. If you want to be challenged politically then Ontroerend Goed’s Fight Night at the Drum Theatre, Plymouth is a must, whilst over at Sheffield Theatres Stuart: A Life Backwards continues its tour from the Edinburgh Fringe.
Eleanor recommends…
I had the privilege of visiting the beautiful Theatre Royal Plymouth last week, and had sneaky tour before the refurbished and remodelled space reopens next week. If you’ve been before, it’ll feel different and more welcoming – and the queues for the bar should be shorter! If you haven’t been before, well it’s got War Horse to reopen its newly christened Lyric auditorium, and the astonishing 1927’s The Animals and Children Took to the Streets and the above-mentioned Fight Night coming up at The Drum…
The sold-out Fleabag at Soho has just added an extra show on Sunday 22 September, so snap those tickets up quickly, and Grounded has extended until 5 October at The Gate. With Headlong’s Chimerica still stunning audiences at the Harold Pinter theatre, try to catch Headlong’s new tour of 1984 around the UK: it’s currently at the Nottingham Playhouse, before heading to Oxford, Salisbury, Warwick and Richmond in October, and Liverpool, Cardiff and Leeds in November. Chris Goode’s charming and thought-provoking Monkey Bars is at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol this week, too.
If the rain and cold are getting you town, for sheer joie de vivre it’s hard to beat the RSC’s Matilda, which is booking at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End until December 2014.
Photo of Secret Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith by Alexandra Davenport.