Theatre
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Theatre Roundup: Spring 2022
The big new curtains coming up this season in the West End – from feel-good musicals to blockbuster dramas
This spring brings new shows to London’s West End, with some of the biggest plays and musicals of the year pushing up through the frost of winter to reopen a season of theatre like no other. The next few months will see dozens of major opening nights across the city, with revivals, classics and Hollywood debuts joining huge new original voices in a spring worth queuing around the block for. Here’s our roundup of some of the brightest new highlights to hit stages soon.
Grease
When: From May 3
Where: Dominion Theatre
The musical everyone wanted to be in at school is finally returning to the West End after 11 years. Last playing at the Piccadilly Theatre in April 2011, Grease took to the road over the last decade picking up new fans wherever it went. Now back in the capital, the revival show promises to be “even more electrifyin” than before, thanks in part to special guest star Peter Andre, who will be playing Vince Fontaine to Dan Partridge and Olivia Moore’s Danny and Sandy.
Jerusalem
When: From April 16
Where: Apollo Theatre
Jez Butterworth’s electric and incomparable drama proudly calls itself “the greatest play of the 21st Century” after a dozen different critics all hung the same rosette on it during its original 2009 run. Hard to describe but impossible to forget, the play comes off like a mix of A Clockwork Orange and The Antique’s Roadshow – a blistering, bruising, hilarious ode to Olde England, myth and masculinity led by a powerhouse revival performance from Oscar, BAFTA, Tony and Olivier-winner Mark Rylance. Unmissable stuff.
My Fair Lady
When: From May 7
Where: London Coliseum
The First Lady of musical theatre returns this spring, bringing one of the best-loved musicals if all time to the London Coliseum. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play, Pygmalion, the original Lerner and Loewe Broadway showstopper became a lavish Hollywood production that won eight Academy Awards in 1964. Now waltzing back into the West End for the first time since 2003, expect My Fair Lady to find a class of its own this year.
Prima Facie
When: From April 15
Where: The Harold Pinter Theatre
Jodie Comer is one of the most exciting screen actors around (Killing Eve, The Last Duel), so her stage debut is reason enough to rush for tickets even without the lure of Suzie Miller’s acclaimed drama. Written in 2019, Miller’s unsparing attack on #MeToo culture and on the tipped scales of a legal system that’s set up to do even more damage to rape victims, Prima Facie has never felt more necessary. Taking to the stage for the first time with Miller’s one-woman play, Comer throws herself in the deep end this Spring with what promises to be one of the hardest hitting dramas of the year.
The Glass Menagerie
When: From May 2
Where: Duke Of York’s Theatre
Tennessee William’s masterpiece of thwarted ambition, sexual frustration and family friction has been a mainstay of the world’s best stages since 1944, with the likes of Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Jessica Lange, Brenda Blethyn, Cherry Jones and Sally Field now passing the torch to Amy Adams (Doubt, The Master, Vice) in the role of Amanda Wingfield. Jeremy Herrin (Wolf Hall Trilogy) directs Adams in her first London stage role in one of the highest-profile openings of the year – running exclusively until the end of August.
The Human Voice
When: From March
Where: The Harold Pinter Theatre
The last time director Ivo van Hove worked with Ruth Wilson they gave us a landmark production of Hedda Gabler that saw Wilson nominated for an Olivier. Now reuniting for Jean Cocteau’s one-woman drama, expect even more of the same fireworks. Roberto Rossellini and Pedro Almodóvar have both brought Cocteau’s extraordinary play to the screen (just one monologue, all delivered over the phone the night before a woman’s lover is set to marry his fiancé), but it’s the kind of performance that finds an electricity all of its own on stage.
Bonnie & Clyde
When: From April 9
Where: The Arts Theatre
Following two sell-out concerts at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Bonnie & Clyde will make its West End debut at the Arts Theatre this April, bringing the cult Broadway show back with a burst of machine gun fire. Tipped as one of the biggest new musicals of the decade, the show tells the story of America’s most notorious lovers-on-the-run to Frank Wildhorn’s all-singin’ all dancin’ rockabilly, blues and gospel jazz score. Expect everyone to be humming ‘Raise A Little Hell’, ‘This World Will Remember Me’ and ‘Made In America’ on the tube this summer.
To Kill A Mockingbird
When: From March 10
Where: Gielgud Theatre
Has the world ever needed Atticus Finch more? Rafe Spall steps into Gregory Peck’s immortal shoes as the heroic lawyer defending much more than a rape case in 60s Alabama, but the biggest draw might be Aaron Sorkin’s words. Adapting Harper Lee’s novel for the stage, Sorkin draws on his experience writing the likes of The West Wing, The Social Network, Moneyball and The Trial Of The Chicago 7 to take on the greatest legal drama in American literature.
