Hay Fever starring Lindsay Duncan and Jeremy Northam

Howard Davies’ new production of Noel Coward’s classic comedy Hay Fever will (aptly) start previews at the Noel Coward Theatre from 10 February 2012.

A glittering cast includes Lindsay Duncan as Judith Bliss and Kevin R McNally as her husband David, Jeremy Northam as Richard, Olivia Colman as Myra Arundel, Sam Callis as Sandy, Freddie Fox as Simon, Jenny Galloway as Clara, Amy Morgan as Jackie and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Sorel.

Coward’s sparkling 1924 comedy of bad manners sees double-Olivier winner Lindsay Duncan return to the Master’s work following her acclaimed 2001 performance alongside  Alan Rickman in Private Lives.

LINKS

Book tickets to Hay Fever at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

Here, journalist and author Clive Hirschhorn remembers a meeting with the ‘Master’ in the 1960′s, an immodest encounter in which the man offered an opinion on just about everything.

Noël Coward, Savoy Hotel, 1972. Photo: © Allan Warren

The very first time I actually saw the Master in the flesh was at a first night at the Haymarket Theatre in 1964. The party he was with included his long-time costume designer Gladys Calthrop, his companion Graham Payn, and his personal secretary, Cole Lesley. Coward arrived in expansive mood and smiled graciously at the battery of photographers whose winking flashbulbs he took in his elegant stride. At the end of the performance he seemed to be in a hurry to leave the foyer. Just as he was about to step into a waiting limo outside, a rather effeminate young man rushed up to him and said: ‘Oh Mr Coward, when are you going to write us a new play?’ ‘Remind me next Thursday,’ said the Master without missing a beat, and stepped into his car. Seconds later he and his party were speeding down the Haymarket – probably to The Ivy Restaurant for dinner.

The following year I spent an hour in his scintillating company when I interviewed him in suite 411 at the Savoy Hotel for the Sunday Express. He had recently had an enormous success at the Old Vic with his production, for the National Theatre, of Hay Fever, whose celebrated cast included Dame Edith Evans, Maggie Smith and Lynn Redgrave. Dame Edith had just been replaced by Celia Johnson, and Coward was in town supervising the take-over.

The interview was set for 12 o’clock and I was told by Mr Lesley, who had arranged the meeting, that I would have precisely one hour, prior to a luncheon Coward was having in the Savoy’s Grill Room with Ian Fleming.

I arrived at suite 411 five minutes early. Noël Coward was on the telephone in an adjoining room and his voice, like a cultivated poodle, was elegant and clipped. Finally he emerged, dressed in a light-blue suit, blue tie and red carnation.

‘My dear boy,’ he said, extending a welcoming hand, ‘it’s been utter, utter chaos and confusion this morning. Do forgive me!’

With a pronounced stoop – as though he had all the problems of the world on his shoulders, he made his way to a settee, sat down, and with the studied grace of a ballet dancer, crossed his legs.

‘Do I look tired?’ he asked. ‘Well I am. I’ve just come back from that ridiculously phoney film festival in Cannes  - and before that I’d been filming with Larry (Olivier). And, my dear boy, the telephone hasn’t stopped ringing for a moment. Ghastly invention, the telephone – but terribly, terribly necessary.’

Noël Coward at Waterloo Station, 1937

He peered at me, looking more like a Chinese Buddha than I would ever have imagined possible.

‘I suppose being inundated with telephone calls is the price one pays for fame,’ he said, and leaned forward to pour me a brandy and ginger ale. We drank to each other’s health and he said: ‘You’re very lucky, you know. I rarely give private interviews. But I was having lunch with Vivien (Leigh) last week and she assured me you were quite, quite charming.’ He lit a cigarette and sat back against one of the several cushions piled high on the settee.

Then he spoke about England. ‘I am England, and England is me. We have a love-hate relationship with each other. It’s everything I stand for, but day by day the place changes. I hardly recognise it anymore.’

But did he not think it was changing for the better, I asked? (We were, after all, in the midst of the Swinging Sixties).

‘Dear boy,’ he said. ‘Who can tell. If I said no, I’d be called a reactionary. And really, I’m a very modern human being. Really I am. I simply adore this country. But oh dear, it’s becoming more and more impossible to live in. And I’m not only referring to the ghastly income-tax situation, which is bad enough. People here have such huge chips on their shoulders these days. Why can’t we stop trying so self-consciously hard to be a “world force” and act a bit more naturally? Today, everyone here is so damn rebellious – and honestly, dear boy, I simply can’t think why.

‘Take modern youth, for example. All this insufferable long hair. Why? What on earth has the Englishman done to deserve this gross exhibitionism? Long hair is all very well if it hangs loosely on brocade, or silk, or velvet, but it seems all wrong when it’s supposed to offset some smelly sports shirt, don’t you think?

‘You can’t walk through Leicester Square these days without getting the decidedly uncomfortable feeling that you’re witnessing part of some nightmarish pantomime in which men and women are interchangeable.

‘We were such an elegant nation once,’ he said. ‘Now that is no longer the case. Which is such a pity, don’t you agree? I mean, take today’s women, for example. They really do look insufferable. When I was a youth – some 50 years ago, women endeavoured to look like women, with the result that the English “gel” was, probably, the most attractive creature in the world. But today that’s all gone and forgotten. Talk about your English rose! English weeds would be too much of a compliment.

“I mean, take today’s women, for example. They really do look insufferable.”

‘Femininity, it would appear, is passé,’ he said. ‘And so, for that matter, is masculinity in men. The youth of today go out of their way to look sexless, which is all rather depressing – and, need I say it, confusing? I’m 65,’ he said, ‘though 25 is the age I prefer to answer to because I feel no older than that. But dear me, most youngsters of 25 today are far too blasé and worldly for their own good.’

So why, in his opinion, were things taking such a turn for the worse?

‘Because today, we tend to revere youth out of all proportion to its worth. I know Shaw said youth was wasted on the young. But youth is a natural condition, not a privilege, and the sooner we return to treating our offspring like ordinary children and less like tin Gods, the better it will be for all concerned.

‘We’re just beginning to recover from two dreadful World Wars,’ he said, ‘in which we lost half our men, but this is no excuse to allow weakness to pass off for progress.’

Have we really changed all that much then? ‘Our system of values is all wrong, now. Elegance and style are dirty words.’

Maggie Smith as Myra Arundel in Hay Fever (National Theatre) at the Old Vic, 1964

At the time (1965), Coward had homes in Switzerland and Jamaica. I asked him if he would ever return to Britain as a permanent resident.

‘I fear not,’ he said. ‘The taxes alone would cripple me, dear boy. I’m fairly comfortable today – not nearly as rich as some people think, you understand – just comfortable. But if I decided to settle here, I’m afraid I’d be rather hard up. I don’t know how people manage to remain wealthy in this country. I know people think I’m a millionaire, but I’m not. And believe me, if I lived here, I’d just be able to cope with my day to day expenses! And, as you can see, now I manage to live quite well. You know, hotel suites, chauffeur-driven cars, caviar. All as it should be, of course!’

I asked him whether it was a strain living up to his reputation as one of the world’s wittiest men.

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I’m a naturally witty man. I always have been. Also, I’m an enormously talented man and it’s no use pretending I’m not. My name was a household word before I was 25. Ever since the age of six I was brilliant. I have always had a natural facility for entertaining others,’ he said, ‘and this, no matter what the critics may say, has never deserted me. And of course, I’ve always had a highly developed sense of humour – and in my time, yes, I have said some exceptional and memorable things. But I have never felt obliged, like Oscar Wilde, to sit down at a dinner table and hold forth for a couple of hours non-stop. I’m not saying I couldn’t, mark you – but oh! How boring for the poor guests. It would be like listening to a joke book read aloud.

‘Wit,’ he said,’ is like caviar, it should be savoured in small, elegant portions and not spread about like marmalade. I have never felt obliged to make a conscious attempt at being funny. That’s for clowns and I’m not a clown. I’m a civilised human being with a great God-given capacity for humour.’

“How else can you account for the continued popularity of my plays amongst people who will never see the inside of tasteful drawing room?”

Do people still appreciate his kind of upper-class humour, I asked?

‘But of course! The lower classes like nothing better than to adore the upper classes. This is their goal in life. Surely the art of living is synonymous with the art of bettering oneself? If the lower classes had nothing to look up to and emulate, life would be unspeakably dull for them,’ he said. ‘How else can you account for the continued popularity of my plays amongst people who will never see the inside of tasteful drawing room? All people are dreamers, no matter what their walk of life. The lower classes dream of nobility and royalty – who, in turn, dream of the lower classes, no doubt! It’s a vicious circle.

‘People are always trying to be what they’re not,’ he said. ‘This is one of the axioms of life. That’s what the theatre is all about. We all need escapism, and you can stand on your head, but that’s an undeniable fact. I mean, how else can you account for the popularity of James Bond?’

At 65, what, I asked him, is the most valuable lesson he has learnt from life? ‘To take everything with a pinch of salt,’ he said. ‘Life is far too short to let it get you down. I don’t like what’s happening in Britain today, but I don’t let it get me down. If you have a big, generous heart, I’d say you can’t go wrong. Some cynics say that no good deed goes unpunished. This is not true. No good deed goes unrewarded, and the reward is self-satisfaction. And if this sounds smug – well, maybe it is.

‘I love human beings, and I’m not being corny about it. Life is nothing but what you and I, ordinary human beings, make it. I’m dedicated to making the world a better place to live in and therefore you can imagine how distressed I am when my efforts are labelled reactionary by some people and some critics who have only hatred in their hearts. Where is the wrong in bringing humour, warmth and goodness into people’s lives, particularly in view of all the sorrow we’ve endured over the last fifty years?

‘The British have always had a generous spirit,’ he said, ‘and that is why we have always been great. I find it almost suicidal that today people go out of their way to knock everything this country stands for. It’s so bloody perverse, and what are they putting back instead? Kitchen sinks, cockroaches, free thinking – which is always confused with unprintable smut – and gloom-strewn pessimism. This is not the stuff of greatness, and if we held our contemporary attitudes in 1940, we wouldn’t be here today. I continue to tell foreigners how great we are. Well, before I die, I truly would like to believe this myself.’

“I have always had a natural facility for entertaining others, and this, no matter what the critics may say, has never deserted me.”

At this point in the interview Cole Lesley appeared. The hour was up and Noël, he said, had to get ready for his luncheon with Ian Fleming.

Coward stood up, and just before leaving, I congratulated him on the success of Hay Fever.

‘Yes, it is gratifying,’ he said, ‘and now that dear old Edith – who was totally wrong for Judith Bless – has left the cast and Celia has joined it, the whole thing is far, far better,. At least you can understand what Celia is saying. And that, dear boy, is strictly off the record.’ Then he turned to Cole Lesley. ‘How very, very nice,’ he said, ‘to be interviewed by a non-journalist.’

To this day I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or not.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN

A version of this article appeared in Applause magazine.

LINKS

Book tickets to Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

VIDEO: Maggie Smith and Anthony Nicholls in Hay Fever (1964) at the Old Vic

Further reading by Clive Hirschhorn

Noel Coward Estate

Noel Coward Foundation

Noel Coward Society

Ruthie Henshall in Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre

Noel Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit has opened at the Apollo Theatre featuring an all-star cast including Alison Steadman (Gavin & Stacey), Ruthie Henshall (Chicago), Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Hattie), and directed by Thea Sharrock (After the Dance).

Read reviews of Blithe Spirit from the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent and Daily Mail, below.

Book tickets to see Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

Monday 7 March

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Tim Firth’s new play Sign of the Times starts previews at the Duchess Theatre tonight, with its press night on Friday. The Calendar Girls author has written a warm and witty comedy about a disillusioned sign erector whose life is changed by a clumsy teenager. The show stars Matthew Kelly and Shameless actor Gerard Kearns.

Wednesday 9 March

Ruthie Henshall in Blithe Spirit

BLITHE SPIRIT: Noel Coward’s blissful comedy Blithe Spirit officially opens at the Apollo Theatre tonight featuring an all-star cast including Alison Steadman (Gavin & Stacey), Ruthie Henshall (Chicago), Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Hattie). The revival is directed by the award-winning Thea Sharrock (After the Dance).

Thursday 10 March

FLARE PATH: Trevor Nunn kicks off as artistic director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket with the press night for Flare Path. Terence Rattigan’s Second World War romance stars Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith.

Friday 11 March

HURLY BURLY: Salacious show Hurly Burly opens at the Garrick Theatre, featuring the luscious Miss Polly Rae in an all singing, all dancing burlesque-inspired revue, with a contemporary twist. Long-time Kylie collaborator William Baker directs.

Sunday 13 March 2011

OLIVIER AWARDS: The Olivier Awards are tonight at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, promising a high star quotient at the UK theatre’s most important event. This year’s ceremony is hosted by Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, and you can tune in live to hear who wins on Radio 2 or via the BBC’s red button TV service. Visit our Olivier Awards micro-site here.

LINKS

Shows – tickets and booking information
Olivier Awards 2011

Monday 28 February 2011

Million Dollar Quartet, the musical that recreates the historic day when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis all made music together, opens tonight at the Noel Coward Theatre starring a multi-talented cast including Bill Ward (Coronation Street).

Tuesday 1 March 2011

The Wizard of Oz cast, left - right Edward Baker-Duly, David Ganly, Paul Keating and Danielle Hope

It’s the premiere tonight of the musical that has received more publicity, hype and good old-fashioned audience anticipation than any other show for years as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sparkly new production of The Wizard of Oz opens at the London Palladium. Rebooted by Jeremy Sams and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Bill Kenwright, the show sees Over The Rainbow star Danielle Hope make her West End stage debut joined by Michael Crawford as the Wizard and Hannah Waddingham as the Wicked Witch.

Also today, tickets go on sale for the Olivier Awards at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The 13th March ceremony is open to theatregoers for the first time and promises a starry night of West End celebs and excerpts from the shows.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Noel Coward’s blissful comedy Blithe Spirit starts previews at the Apollo Theatre featuring an all-star cast including Alison Steadman (Gavin & Stacey), Ruthie Henshall (Chicago), Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Hattie). The revival is directed by the award-winning Thea Sharrock (After the Dance).

Thursday 3 March 2011

Previews starts for Hurly Burly at the Garrick Theatre, featuring the luscious Miss Polly Rae in an all singing, all dancing burlesque-inspired revue with a contemporary twist.

Alison Steadman as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit

Also tonight, In A Forest, Dark and Deep starts previews at the Vaudeville Theatre with Lost star Matthew Fox and Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer) in Neil LaBute’s new psychological thriller.

Friday 4 March 2011

Trevor Nunn begins his artistic directorship of the Theatre Royal Haymarket tonight with the start of previews for Flare Path. Terence Rattigan’s Second World War romance sees Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith star.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Kneehigh theare company, who scored a huge hit in London and on Broadway with their stage take on Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, are back with a brand new production. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, based on the classic French film, begins previews at the Gielgud Theatre tonight starring Joanna Riding, Meow Meow and Andrew Durand.

Also on Saturday, A Flea in Her Ear closes at the Old Vic Theatre starring Tom Hollander and Ordinary Days starring Daniel Boys ends at the Trafalgar Studios.

Phoenix Theatre

Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in Private Lives

Today, 24 September 2010, marks the 80th anniversary of London’s Phoenix Theatre. Commissioned by Sidney Bernstein, who started Granada television, the Charing Cross Road theatre opened in 1930 with Noel Coward’s classic play Private Lives, staring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Adrianne Allen.

Other notable successes for the theatre included Noel Coward again, this time with his Tonight at 8.30 one-act plays in 1936, Canterbury Tales in 1968, Night and Day in 1978 and a long list of famous players including John Gielgud, Vivien Leigh, Paul Scofield and Vanessa Redgrave. The Phoenix Theatre currently hosts Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers, which opened at the venue in November 1991.

The Phoenix theatre was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Bertie Crew and Cecil Masey with Theodore Komisarjevsky.

A number of West End venues are celebrating their 80th birthdays this year,  following a boom in theatre building in the Art Deco 1930′s, including the Prince Edward, Cambridge, Trafalgar Studios, Apollo Victoria and Adelphi theatres.

Stomp and Wicked

Lee Mead in Wicked

Long-running West End shows Stomp at the Ambassadors Theatre and Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre also celebrate birthdays this month. Stomp celebrates its 8th birthday tomorrow, having opened at the Vaudeville Theatre on 25 September 2002. The high-energy show, which combines theatre, dance, comedy and percussion, moved to its current home at the Ambassadors in 2007.

On Monday 27 September big-budget Broadway musical Wicked celebrates its 4th birthday at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London. Currently starring Lee Mead, Rachel Tucker and Louise Dearman, Wicked remains one of the most successful shows on both sides of the Atlantic. The Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman musical is based on the best-selling novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, a companion novel to L. Frank Baum’s classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

PHOENIX THEATRE QUICK FACTS

Hard to now imagine but the original site had been a factory, before becoming a Music Hall called the Alcazar.

In 1969 the owners of the Phoenix, Gerald and Veronica Flint-Shipman, organised a midnight matinee for Noel Coward’s 70th birthday, attended by Princess Margaret. A few days before, he opened the Noel Coward bar in the theatre’s foyer.

In 1976 the Phoenix hosted a Hollywood season of four plays featuring particularly starry names: Rock Hudson and Juliet Prowse in I Do I Do, Glynis Johns and Louis Jordan in 13, Rue De L’Amour, Lee Remick in Bus Stop and Douglas Fairbanks Jr in The Pleasure of His Company.

On reviewing the theatre when it first opened, The Stage newspaper said that, “Each seat has sufficient body and leg room and is provided with its own hat rack”.

LINKS

News: Historic year for West End venues

ArthurLloyd.co.uk: Phoenix history

Blood Brothers – book tickets

Stomp – book tickets

Wicked – book tickets

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £15 on tickets to Design for Living at the Old Vic

Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre

If you are feeling spontaneous this week you can save £15 on Noel Coward’s Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

Anthony Page directs Coward’s 1932 comedy about the complicated three-way relationship between two men and a woman, starring Tom Burke (Telstar), Andrew Scott (Lennon Naked) and Lisa Dillon (Cranford).

The show enjoyed terrific reviews last week, with The Times and The Sunday Times both giving the show 5 STARS.

BUT HURRY – the offer is only valid for performances this week, until Saturday 25 September.

BOOK NOW: Save £15 on tickets to Design for Living at the Old Vic

It’s time to reassess Ruthie once again.

For years she has won plaudits and praise for her musical talents, appearing in a wealth of big musicals including She Loves Me (for which she won an Olivier Award), Crazy For You, Chicago, Miss Saigon and Oliver!

But we shouldn’t forget that her talent for comedy, and experience of appearing in a variety of plays, will stand her in good stead when she appears as the beautiful, sultry Elvira in Noel Coward’s witty comedy Blithe Spirit (opens at the Apollo Theatre in London from 2 March 2011).

Henshall will be in good company, playing alongside Alison Steadman (Gavin and Stacey) as Madame Arcati, and Cold Feet’s Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Alex) as Charles and Ruth Condomine.

Noel Coward’s comedy will be directed by Thea Sharrock, who recently enjoyed enormous success for her production of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance at the National Theatre. She will return to Rattigan next year for his Centenary by directing Cause Célèbre, which will open at the Old Vic Theatre on 17 March, a few days after Blithe Spirit opens in London.

Ruthie trained at Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom, Surrey, swiftly landing a role in a touring production of A Chorus Line before making her West End debut in Cats at the New London Theatre.

Then at 21she was cast as Ellen in Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, followed by Children of Eden at the Prince Edward Theatre and then a season at the Chichester Festival Theatre, performing in Shakespeare, Moliere and the musical Valentine’s Day.

Ruthie then played Fantine in Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre, and followed this in 1993 by returning to the Prince Edward Theatre to play Polly in Crazy for You, for which she was nominated for her first Olivier award. Her next part got her the award – playing Amalia Balash in She Loves Me at the Savoy Theatre.

Next up she played Nancy in 1996 in Sam Mendes’ revival of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, then a quick Chichester run playing Polly in Divorce Me, Darling before a biggie – starring as Roxie Hart in the London production of Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre.

She then went to Broadway, appearing in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 before playing Velma Kelly in the Broadway production of Chicago, Miss Saigon and Putting It Together.

Back in London she starred as Peggy Sue in Peggy Sue Got Married, and then in 2001 took a part in The Vagina Monologues at the Arts Theatre. After playing Velma in the London production of Chicago, and touring the UK in Fosse, she joined the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman In White at the Palace Theatre.

In 2006 she returned to New York to play Emma in David Ives’s two-hander The Other Woman and in 2007 starred in the Encores! production of Stairway to Paradise at City Centre.

UK and US concert tours followed, including her Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2004, plus a feature film – Ahrens and Menken’s A Christmas Carol with Kelsey Grammer and Jane Krakowski – and TV roles in Law and Order and Mysteries of 71st Street for CBS.

In 2008 she took the lead in Marguerite at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Book tickets to Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

Gareth Gates in Les Mis

On Tuesday 14 September, Les Miserables returns to the Barbican Theatre, where it all began 25 years ago. A brand new production of Boublil and Schonberg’s legendary musical has been touring the UK to celebrate its 25th anniversary and completes its run at the Barbican – but for only 22 performances. The show features a dynamic young cast including Gareth Gates.

Design for Living

Noel Coward is never far from the West End, and Wednesday 15 September sees the opening night of Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo. Anthony Page directs Coward’s 1932 comedy about the complicated three-way relationship between two men and a woman. The play stars Tom Burke (Telstar), Andrew Scott (Lennon Naked) and Lisa Dillon (Cranford) and runs until 27 November.

On the same day Krapp’s Last Tape starts previews at the Duchess Theatre starring one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, Michael Gambon. The Dublin Gate Theatre transfer of Samuel Beckett’s classic enjoyed rave reviews at the Gate directed by Michael Colgan. The 50 minute show is playing two shows a night, keeping Mr Gambon nicely occupied.

Lynda Carter

On Friday 17 September  the fabulous Lynda Carter, aka Wonder Women, pops to town for two shows of her Lynda Carter: At Last solo sing-fest. Best known to millions as TV superhero Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter: At Last is a musical evening to celebrate her recent solo album. Following dates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, Lynda Carter will appear in London on 17 and 18 September 2010 at the Garrick Theatre.

Also on Friday, the Chichester Festival Theatre’s sell-out production of Yes, Prime Minister starts previews at the Gielgud Theatre starring Henry Goodman and David Haig. The original writers of the BBC series, Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn, have reunited for this hilarious 30th anniversary production, promising much topical wit and political spin-doctoring: Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby are back and this time to face the country in financial meltdown!

Ben Barnes and Genevieve O'Reilly, Birdsong

The following day, Saturday 18 September, Trevor Nunn is back in the West End directing Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation of the best-selling Sebastian Faulks novel Birdsong. The play starts previews at the Comedy Theatre starring British movie star Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia), Nicholas Farrell, Iain Mitchell, Genevieve O’Reilly and Lee Ross, and tells the moving story of one man’s journey through an all consuming love affair and into the horror of the First World War.

BOOKING INFO

Book tickets to Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre

Books tickets to Les Miserables 25th anniversary production at the Barbican Theatre

Book tickets to Krapp’s Last Tape at the Duchess Theatre

Book tickets to Yes, Prime Minister at the Gielgud Theatre

Book tickets to Birdsong at the Comedy Theatre

Book tickets to Lynda Carter: At Last at the Garrick Theatre