The Standard of Living, a new play by award-winning playwright and screenwriter James Graham, is set to receive its world premiere in the West End, with Olivier Award winner Rory Kinnear starring as the radical economist John Maynard Keynes.
The Standard of Living will run for a strictly limited 12-week engagement at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with previews from 21 September 2026 and an opening night on Tuesday 29 September, ahead of a final performance on 12 December 2026. Directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by James Graham (Dear England, Punch, Sherwood) with set design by Bob Crowley, it tells the story of John Maynard Keynes, one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers: the man who, in daring to imagine a different kind of future, helped reshape the Western world in the aftermath of the First World War, and became the singular driving force behind arts funding in Britain.
Rory Kinnear (Hamlet, Skyfall, The Diplomat) leads the company as Keynes, the radical economist and member of the influential Bloomsbury Group. Alongside him, Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova makes her West End debut as Lydia Lopokova, the celebrated Russian ballet dancer, a soloist with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, who fell in love with and married Keynes.
Book Tickets to The Standard of Living here
A good life: what the play is about
Husband to ballerina Lydia Lopokova, lover to the painter Duncan Grant and friend to Virginia Woolf, Keynes moves between the corridors of power in Whitehall and the intoxicating freedom of a radical circle of artists, writers and lovers, all determined to live differently. But as markets crash, old systems crumble and Britain teeters on the edge of chaos, one question begins to consume him: what is a good life?
Can art, love and human connection reshape the future before it’s too late or is the world too addicted to wealth and power to change? Alive with music, dance, desire and debate, The Standard of Living is billed as a thrilling, funny and deeply moving portrait of a man who dared to imagine something better.
An award-winning creative team
The Standard of Living reunites two of British theatre’s most celebrated figures. It is written by three-time Olivier Award winner James Graham, whose recent work includes the sold-out National Theatre and West End hit Dear England, the acclaimed Punch, and the BAFTA-winning television drama Sherwood. Graham described the project as “playwriting heaven,” adding that Keynes was “a humble, radical world-builder” whose story crosses “so many of my favourite worlds to depict: politics, economics, the arts, diplomacy.”
Directing is multi-award-winner Nicholas Hytner, former Director of the National Theatre and co-founder of the Bridge Theatre, whose credits include The History Boys, One Man, Two Guvnors and Giant. Hytner, who first commissioned Graham’s breakout hit This House for the National in 2012, said the play “presses all my buttons,” and spoke of his delight at reuniting with Kinnear and bringing “the astonishing Natalia Osipova to the West End.” The creative team also includes Olivier Award-winning set designer Bob Crowley (Giant, The Inheritance, An American in Paris).
Check availability for The Standard of Living here
Plan your visit
- Venue: Theatre Royal Haymarket, 18 Suffolk Street, London SW1Y 4HT
- Dates: 21 September – 12 December 2026 (opening night 29 September)
- Tickets: On general sale from 8am, 15 June 2026
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
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