Lyric Hammersmith announces new season for 2024 & 2025

New productions of Our Country’s Good, A Raisin in the Sun and Play On!

The Lyric Hammersmith in London has announced its new 2024 – 2025 season of plays and musicals.

Highlights include a new production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Olivier Award-winner Our Country’s Good, playing from 5 September to 5 October 2024.

Timberlake Wertenbaker is revisiting the piece for this major London revival, which examines power and justice in the British justice system and themes of deportation as punishment, based on the extraordinary true story of Australia’s first penal colony.

Lyric Hammersmith Artistic Director Rachel O’Riordan (A Doll’s House, Iphigenia in Splott) directs.

Also coming in the next season is a new production of Lorraine Hansberry’s American classic A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Lyric Artistic Associate Tinuke Craig (Jitney, The Color Purple), from 8 October to 2 November 2024.

This groundbreaking play by Lorraine Hansberry broke barriers as the first play by a Black woman on Broadway, and is a family drama full of humour and heart. The revival is a co-production with Headlong, Leeds Playhouse and Nottingham Playhouse.

This Christmas, the Lyric’s pantomime will be Aladdin, running from 16 November 2024 to 4 January 2025, written by Sonia Jalaly and directed by Associate Director, Nicholai La Barrie.

Jalaly and La Barrie join forces once again following their award-winning Lyric Hammersmith panto in 2022, Jack and the Beanstalk.

Musical Play On!, based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, is coming to the Lyric Hammersmith from 28 January to 22 February 2025.

Directed by Michael Buffong (A Kind of People, All My Sons), the show is set in New York’s Cotton Club and fuses the music of Duke Ellington with street dance choreography. Play On! is a co-production with Talawa, Belgrade Theatre, Birmingham Hippodrome, Bristol Old Vic, and Liverpool’s Everyman Playhouse.

Returning in 2024 is the “For the Culture: Celebrations of Blackness Festival” running on 24 to 26 October 2024 in conjunction with their production of A Raisin in the Sun. This three day festival will feature music, art, workshops and more, celebrating and honouring the Black British diaspora.

Currently playing at the Lyric Hammersmith is Metamorphosis until 2 March 2024; followed by a new production of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer from 14 March to 13 April 2024; a new stage production of Sci-fi classic Minority Report, from 19 April to 18 May 2024; a revival of musical Wedding Band from 31 May to 29 June 2024; and the European premiere of Australian hit musical FANGIRLS from 13 July to 24 August 2024.

Tickets for the new season goes on pre-sale today.

Book tickets to Our Country’s Good at the Lyric Hammersmith

Book tickets to A Raisin in the Sun at the Lyric Hammersmith

Book tickets to Aladdin at the Lyric Hammersmith

Book tickets to Play On! at the Lyric Hammersmith

What They Said

Rachel O’Riordan, Artistic Director & CEO of the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, said in a statement: “I am honoured to be directing Timberlake Wertenbaker’s seminal play, Our Country’s Good. Through the story of transportation of criminals, the play explores the morality of crime and punishment; asking audiences to consider justice itself. If rules are made by those in power, can the desperate and destitute be held accountable for breaking them? Does sending people away, banishing them, solve societal problems? Written in 1988, it feels terrifyingly relevant now. I couldn’t be more excited that Timberlake is revisiting the script and that audiences will experience this modern classic afresh. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience world-class theatre and over the next year our work will be seen by more audiences than ever before as we collaborate with some of the UK’s most exciting theatres and touring companies from across the country. We are excited to be collaborating with Headlong alongside Leeds Playhouse and Nottingham Playhouse with the ground-breaking play by Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun. Directed by our Artistic Associate Tinuke Craig this classic family drama explores race and class, coming to the Lyric following a UK tour. In February 2025 our collaboration with Talawa Theatre Company will culminate in the London premiere of Play On! This imaginative, ambitious musical will tour right across the country. With our producing partners, we hope this production will increase the visibility and profile of UK Black and Global Majority theatre professionals nationwide. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Play On! is a high-octane musical set in the swinging kingdom of Harlem in the 1940s. From a 1940s Harlem in New York, to the Australian shores of 1788, our beautiful Frank Matcham auditorium is your portal to new worlds in 2024. Let your imagination take you away. We cannot wait to welcome audiences near and far for unforgettable nights at the theatre.”

Writer of Our Country’s Good, Timberlake Wertenbaker, said: “I’m delighted to come back to the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre because it’s such a beautiful and vibrant theatre and the audience always feels very lively there. I loved working there two years ago and I look forward to being there again. Rachel and I have had many conversations and I look forward to working with her on Our Country’s Good. Since the play first appeared, some things seem to be repeating themselves like the threat to the theatre and the cruelty of prisons but some perceptions have changed as we have become more aware of certain aspects of our history. We hope to reflect some of that.”

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Main photo: Lyric Hammersmith Season 2024-2025