NewsBeat
The best plays and musicals (in London and beyond) to book now
Lesley Manville and Poldark’s Aidan Turner star as schemers Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont in this major revival of Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation of Pierre Choderlos De Laclos’s scandalous 1782 novel. The pair (who were played by Glenn Close and John Malkovich on-screen) use seduction as a cruel strategy in the salons of the super-rich, but when their alliance collapses, the battle between them threatens to engulf everyone. Director Marianne Elliott gave us War Horse and the recent hit revival of Sondheim’s Company. A smoking-hot ticket.
National’s Lyttelton Theatre
Booking: March 21-June 6
Tickets: nationaltheatre.org.uk
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Rebel Ridge’s Aaron Pierre (who is rumoured to be in the running for Bond) and Giles Terera (Hamilton) star in Clint Dyer’s new staging of Ken Kesey’s enduring 1962 critique of psychiatry. Pierre plays the Jack Nicholson role of Randle P McMurphy, the gambler and provocateur whose defiance unsettles the ward and unleashes a reckoning with truth. Terera plays the eloquent patient Dale Harding. Expect a radical rethink from Dyer: his production is billed as “a searing exploration of colonialism and the social structures built to silence dissent”, performed in the round.
The Old Vic
Booking: April 1-May 23
Tickets: oldvictheatre.com
Please Please Me
Tom Wright’s fascinating-sounding new play charts the rise of the Fab Four and the tragic story of their manager Brian Epstein, known as the “fifth Beatle”. After discovering them in the Cavern Club in 1961, Epstein transforms the charismatic quartet into the world’s biggest band – but behind the scenes, a gay man in a homophobic world, he has his own battles to fight. Directed by Amit Sharma, who also directed the recent hit bio-drama about Sidney Poitier, Retrograde, it might just reignite a bit of Beatlemania ahead of the forthcoming biopics.
Kiln Theatre
Booking: April 16-May 23
Tickets: kilntheatre.com