London 2015: Mainstream Theatre (January - June)

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Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

 

From big name productions such as Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet to political plays like The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse, Rachel Halliburton explores the best mainstream theatre in London 2015. Click here for July to December.

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The National Theatre

 

Nicholas Hytner's departure from the artistic directorship of the National Theatre will, without doubt, be the seismic event of 2015 in London's theatreland. Since he and his executive producer Nick Starr took the reins ten years ago, the National has enjoyed one of its most excitingly creative and profitable periods, overseeing hits including War Horse and One Man, Two Guvnors. Hytner will bow out in March. His last production, which opens this January, will be Tom Stoppard's new neuroscience play The Hard Problem. This, typically, represents something of a coup for Hytner - it's the first play Stoppard has written since Rock 'n' Roll in 2006 and his first for the National since The Coast of Utopia in 2002. Once he leaves the National, Hytner has already announced that he and Starr will be setting up their own company.

His successor will be Rufus Norris. Hytner is a daunting act to follow, but Norris's ecstatically reviewed production of Behind The Beautiful Forevers - the extraordinary David Hare play that takes the audience inside the life of a Mumbai slum - bodes well for the National's future. This production - which can be seen till the end of January - is just one example of the huge interest London theatre is taking in global affairs this year.  In January, the National also presents Dara - a play originally performed in Pakistan - which whisks the audience to seventeenth century Mughal India to witness the historically defining struggle between two heirs to the empire and their different interpretations of religion.

 
 
 

The Royal Court and Shakespeare's Globe

 

At the Royal Court upstairs, Dalia Taha's play Fireworks brings a more contemporary international perspective this February by focusing on what it's like to be a Palestinian child living under siege. And at Shakespeare's Globe, the action shifts further east with an opportunity to see a Mandarin production of Richard III in July, following its highly successful visit to London in 2012. Dominic Dromgoole, the wonderfully innovative artistic director of the Globe, has sadly announced that he will be stepping down after a decade in the role, though he won't be departing till 2016. Among a raft of Shakespeare productions, his last year is also marked by Helen Edmundsons's The Heresy of Love, which will be staged in July. This takes place in the late 1600s in a convent in Mexico, where a talented, innovative writer finds herself caught up in a fatal struggle between two Princes of the Church.

 
 
 

Big Name Productions

 

As ever, there will be plenty of chances in 2015 to see big name productions, with Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet in August at the Barbican already generating plenty of heat. Earlier in the year, Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma will be appearing at the National Theatre in Bernard Shaw's Don-Juan-inspired Man and Superman (February), while just up the road at the Young Vic, Juliet Stevenson will be reprising her highly successful role in Happy Days. Comedy fans should be getting excited about Stephen Mangan's appearance in Rules for Living at the National, a perversely unseasonal play about Christmas that will appear in March, and whose cracking cast includes Deborah Findlay, Miles Jupp and Maggie Service. And Juliette Binoche will come to the Barbican in March for what will prove to be the battle of the Antigones. Binoche stars in a new translation of Sophocles's play directed by Ivo van Hove, shortly after British playwright Roy Williams presents his new version of Antigone at the end of February at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

 
 
 

The Barbican

 

Putin may be accusing the West of erecting a new Iron Curtain, but as far as the cultural world is concerned it's From Russia With Love this year. In April, the Barbican will be hosting Cheek By Jowl's Measure for Measure, which has been hailed in Moscow as a 'shattering portrait of contemporary Russia.' Moscow's extraordinary Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre is also making a return visit earlier in the year. After its triumphant 2012 'Uncle Vanya', which played in the West End, the company is bringing Eugene Onegin to the Barbican in February.

The distinctive style of its director (Lithuanian Rimas Tuminas) is starting to make him as interesting a proposition to theatregoers as Yukio Ninagawa, who comes to the Barbican in May. As part of a celebration of Ninagawa's eightieth birthday, he is bringing a production of Hamlet - starring Tatsuya Fujiwara. He is also going to be staging his response to Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. And as if there weren't already enough reasons to pitch a tent at the Barbican this year, there is going to be a Beckett festival at the arts centre for three weeks this June. Productions from artists all over the world include the highly acclaimed Lisa Dwan's performance in the plays Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby, the Sydney Theatre Company's Waiting for Godot directed by Cate Blanchett's husband Andrew Upton, and the legendary Robert Wilson's Krapp's Last Tape.

 
 
 

Political Plays

 

While many theatres are providing an international perspective, in Britain's election year there will also be plenty of productions examining the state of the nation. In April, The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse (in partnership with Channel 4) will be performed in real-time for theatre and television, taking audiences to a fictional polling station between 8.30 and 10pm on the day of the real general election. Under Josie Rourke's artistic directorship, the Donmar continues to chart a confident course: Temple, also in May, goes to the heart of 2011's Occupy London crisis at St Paul's Cathedral, with Simon Russell Beale playing the Dean. In February, it presents Patrick Marber's highly entertaining relationship play Closer, with an exciting cast including Nancy Carroll, Oliver Chris, Rachel Redford and Rufus Sewell.

Under Rupert Goold's leadership, the Almeida is always guaranteed to be creating a stir. Also following the political theme, it presents Game in February, a new work from playwright Mike Bartlett which shows a young couple being offered a home of their own in a housing crisis with disturbing consequences. It's part of a series of plays looking at materialism, money, and what we value. In April Simon Stephens' Carmen Disruption examines Bizet's opera by asking questions about how we love in a fractured urban world.

At the Royal Court Theatre Zinnie Harris will also be looking at love in the context of a broken world, but her new play How To Hold Your Breath takes the scenario of a one night stand and uses it to examine the EU and Britain's place in Europe. Just before this the theatre will be presenting a re-run of the popular and provocative 2071, a collaboration between Katie Mitchell, Duncan Macmillan and Professor Chris Rapley on the fraught topic of climate change.

 
 
 

Light Relief

 

For those seeking something a little bit lighter, Stephen Mangan's partner-in-crime from Episodes, the excellent Tamsin Greig, will be starring in the musical version of Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown at The Playhouse this January. And for something completely different, the RSC will be bringing a 1950s Soho version of Thomas Middleton's A Mad World My Masters to the Barbican on April 30. It's yet another example of how in terms of travel through time and space, this year's theatre offers more opportunities than if you had your own personal Tardis. Though it may well be easier to buy a Tardis than to get a ticket to Cumberbatch's Hamlet. Time to start booking. Rachel Halliburton

 
 
 

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