20 things to look forward to for the rest of the year Pt 2

Part two: Theatre and other stuff

In case you missed it, on Monday we published the first half of our guide to some of the cultural highlights that the rest of 2023 has in store for us:

20 things to look forward to for the rest of the year

Today we’ve got the second half of that list, with five theatre shows and five ‘hard to define but worth mentioning’ things. If you think we’ve missed anything do let us know in the comments.

A reminder that we’re taking our summer break next week, so after Saturday’s roundup the next time you hear from us will be on Monday 26th.

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5 plays to look forward to

Mark Rylance in Dr Semmelweis. Photograph: Geraint Lewis

On the face of it, the life story of a 19th-century Hungarian doctor might not sound like the most promising basis for a play. But if we trust anyone to do something remarkable with the tragic life story of Dr Ignaz Semmelweis (the little-known campaigner for antiseptic practices - but you knew that already) it’s Mark Rylance, who not only takes the title role in Dr Semmelweis, but also takes credit for having the original idea for the production.

The play ran at the Bristol Old Vic last year where it picked up great reviews, scoring four stars in the Guardian (“there is a relevance to the themes of new science and distrust that chimes in our Covid era”) and the same from the Telegraph (“you’d be mad to miss him, and the flesh-tingling tale he tells”) and now it’s getting ready to open at the Harold Pinter theatre at the end of this month. Tickets are on sale already.

Now that Succession has finished we will no doubt start to see the cast on the stages of the West End very soon (Brian Cox is kicking things off with Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Wyndham in March of next year, but if we don’t see Jeremy Strong ‘treading the boards’ before Summer 2025, we’ll be very surprised). In the meantime we have one of the programme’s writers, Lucy Prebble, penning The Effect, a play about two volunteers in a clinical drug trial, whose “illicit romance poses startling dilemmas for the supervising doctors.” Playing that couple are Paapa Essiedu (who you’ll remember from I May Destroy You and The Lazarus Project) and Taylor Russell who is fresh from starring alongside Timothy Chalamet in Bones and All. The Effect starts its run at the Lyttelton theatre at the National, on August 1 and goes for a couple months. Tickets are on sale here.

Talking of Long Day’s Journey into Night, way before he became ‘Hot Priest’, Andrew Scott was also in that play, in fact he made his West End debut alongside Brian Cox in Dublin Carol at the Royal Court Theatre back in 2000. Since then he’s picked up great reviews for Aristocrats at the National in 2005, Sea Wall at the Old Vic in 2008, Cock at the Royal Court in 2009, Birdland at the Royal Court in 2014 and of course, Hamlet in 2017 (which picked up four or five stars from pretty much everyone). In September Scott is coming back to London for a five-week run at the Duke of York’s theatre where he’ll be taking on the daunting task of a one-man version of the Chekhov classic, Uncle Vanya.

This version (which is just called Vanya) is written by Simon Stephens, who wrote Sea Wall and Birdland, so you’d like to think Scott is in safe hands. But, on the flip side, he’s somehow going to have to play not just the title role, but also that of Professor Serebryakov, his daughter, his wife, Vanya’s widowed mother, and a whole host of other characters. Vanya will preview at the Richmond Theatre from 28 August until 2 September, and then it starts its run at the Duke of York’s Theatre from 15 September until 21 October. Tickets are on sale right now, but they’re not exactly cheap.

We’re slightly cheating with these last two, because they’re not opening until January 2024, but if we wait until our ‘What to look forward to in 2024’ issue it will be too late, and you can book tickets for one of them already. Also, both of these plays have already played to decent reviews on Broadway, but that’s where the similarities end really.

First up, it’s double Tony winner, Dana H, which is coming to the Royal Court with the same cast as it had in New York… Which isn’t hard because it’s another one person show. Deirdre O’Connell plays Dana Higginbotham, “a psych ward chaplain who is held captive by a patient in a series of Florida motels for five months”. If that sounds a bit far-fetched to you, then you should know that it all actually happened and the play is based around a series of recordings made by the real Dana, which O’Connell lip synchs to for the duration of the 75 minute play.

Variety called the Broadway production “a riveting act of theatrical shamanism,” while Time Out’s five star review called O’Connell’s performance “stunning” and likened the whole thing to “listening to a fascinating true-crime podcast”. It runs until 9 March next year, and tickets are on sale already (and you won’t have to sell a kidney to afford one).

Finally, Plaza Suite is a play by Neil Simon (Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple), which got a Broadway revival last year, complete with husband and wife team Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick portraying three different couples who each occupy suite 719 of the Plaza hotel.

The Guardian reviewed the New York version of the show last March, giving Simon’s attempt at a “referendum on modern marriage” a fairly middling review, complaining that it was “overlong” and not funny enough. Although they loved the costumes and set design (“it looks like the French rococo threw up on itself, exclusively in beige”) and the “flagrant enjoyment” Parker and Broderick were getting from playing opposite each other. The Telegraph seemed to agree in its three-star review, where Diane Snyder found “the laughing audience around me seemed to be having more than enough fun watching the celeb couple having fun onstage.” In the end, the ticket sales tell the realstory, and Plaza Suite went on to shatter multiple box-office records during its 19-week Broadway engagement.

The London production will undoubtedly be a hot ticket too, as it’s Parker’s West End debut and the run is similarly limited, only running at the Savoy Theatre from January 15 to March 31. Tickets are due to go on sale in September, but you can sign up here to get notified when priority tickets go on sale.

5 other things to look forward to