There’s so much happening in November, it’s been a difficult choice to narrow it down to a few that we class as “must-see”. Here is what we came up with.
WEST END – Nice Fish – Harold Pinter Theatre
On a unique collaboration with critically-acclaimed Minnesotan contemporary prose poet Louis Jenkins, Mark Rylance draws on his teenage years in the frozen winters and culture of the American Midwest. This beguiling new play follows an ice fishing expedition where the ordinary and extraordinary collide in a sublimely playful and profound way.
On a frozen Minnesota lake, the ice is beginning to creak and groan. It’s the end of the fishing season and on the frostbitten, unforgiving landscape, two old friends are out on the ice and they are angling for something big, something down there that is pure need, something that, had it the wherewithal, would swallow them whole.
WEST END – School Of Rock – New London Theatre
Based on the iconic, hit movie, this irresistible new musical follows Dewey Finn, a failed, wannabe rock star who decides to earn an extra bit of cash by posing as a supply teacher at a prestigious prep school. There he turns a class of straight–A pupils into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band. But can he get them to the Battle of the Bands without their parents and the school’s headmistress finding out?
With a new score from Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater, book by Julian Fellowes and the original songs from the movie, School Or Rock is musical treat for all ages. After rave reviews on Broadway, you are invited to bring your air guitar and unleash your inner rock god!
BOOK TICKETS FOR SCHOOL OF ROCK
WEST END – Half A Sixpence – Noel Coward Theatre
This new stage version of “HALF A SIXPENCE”, the musical adaptation of H.G. Wells’s semi- autobiographical novel ‘Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul’, is a completely fresh adaptation which reunites book-writer Julian Fellowes (Oscar-winning screenwriter and creator of Downton Abbey) with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, the musical team that co-creator Cameron Mackintosh first put together to create the hit stage adaptation of “Mary Poppins” with Disney. The score is inspired by and features several of composer David Heneker’s exhilarating songs from the original production, including ‘Flash Bang Wallop’, ‘Money To Burn’ and ‘Half A Sixpence’.
BOOK TICKETS FOR HALF A SIXPENCE
WEST END – It Is Easy To Be Dead – Trafalgar Studios
When twenty-year-old Charles Sorley is killed in action during the First World War, his devastated parents are left with only his letters and poems to remember him by. Using his extraordinary writings, together with music and songs of the period, It Is Easy To Be Dead is a tender portrait of a brief life filled with promise, cut short by the futility of war.
Charles Sorley was a witty, intelligent and spirited young man from Aberdeen, with a talent for poetry and dreams of escaping his privileged background. Studying in Germany in 1914 – where he was briefly imprisoned as an enemy alien – his life, like those of millions of other young men and their families, was ripped apart by the start of the First World War.
BOOK TICKETS FOR IT IS EASY TO BE DEAD
WEST END – Buried Child – Trafalgar Studios
Set in rural America as it was reeling from a recession, the downturn of the agricultural industry and with a rising popularity in highly conservative candidates, the similarity of the political atmosphere in 1979 and 2016 is compelling, especially in the run-up to the American Presidential Election in November. Casting a brutal light on disenfranchised Americans, Buried Child is a dark, macabre and painfully funny family drama that is as relevant now as it was during it’s first run almost 40 years ago.
Dodge (Harris) and Halie (Madigan) are barely hanging on to their farmland and their sanity while looking after their two wayward grown sons. When their grandson Vince arrives with his girlfriend, no one seems to recognise him, and confusion abounds. As Vince tries to make sense of the chaos, the rest of the family dances around a deep, dark secret. This wildly poetic and cuttingly funny take on the American family drama gleefully pulls apart the threadbare deluded visions of our families and our homes.
OFF WEST END – Tonight With Donny Stixx – Bunker Theatre
Fresh from its critically acclaimed 2015 Edinburgh Festival season, Metal Rabbit, in association with the Bunker Theatre will present Philip Ridley’s Tonight With Dony Stixx.
Donny has committed an act that shocked everyone. Tabloids called him The Most Hated Boy Alive. But, despite this, Donny doesn’t want forgiveness. All Donny wants is his own television show.
Written originally as the companion piece to Fringe First winning Dark Vanilla Jungle, this brutal monologue leaves us in flux between sympathy and loathing, shocked by what unfolds. Stixx is a compelling one-man show about our celebrity-obsessed culture, the damage our parents can inflict on us and the dangers of delusion.
BOOK NOW FOR TONIGHT WITH DONNY STIXX
TOURING – The Catherine Tate Show
The critically acclaimed, award-winning comedian and actor Catherine Tate, will take The Catherine Tate Show – Live across the country this autumn, with a 21 date UK tour starting on 1 November.
In never seen before sketches, the tour will unite some of Catherine’s best-known characters from her hugely successful BBC series The Catherine Tate Show. The cast will include ‘Nan’ Taylor; Irish nurse Bernie; Geordie Georgie; Essex girl Sam…and the return of a certain argumentative teenager…
BOOK NOW FOR THE CATHERINE TATE SHOW
TOURING – The Red Shows
Following the success of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Car Man, New Adventures have announced the World Premiere of Matthew Bourne’s production of The Red Shoes. The production will open at the Theatre Royal Plymouth on Monday 21 November before undertaking a UK tour.
A beloved fairy-tale and Academy Award-winning movie, The Red Shoes has seduced audiences and inspired generations of dancers with its tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. Victoria Page lives to dance but her ambitions become a battleground between the two men who inspire her passion.
