London Spotlight: January 2010

The big West End event at the beginning of the year may well be the move from the Royal Court for Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, with Mark Rylance recreating his celebrated performance. It’s at the Apollo (January 28-April 24) and is not about the Middle East but about the new Jerusalem that England was touted to be. Or the prime attention-getter could be that other transfer from the Royal Court, Enron, to the Noel Coward (January 16-May 9). The famous stateside corporate scandal is turned into a Brechtian fantasy by author Lucy Prebble and director Rupert Goold, with Samuel West as Lawrence Skilling, Tim Pigott-Smith as Kenneth Lay and the rest of the original cast repeating their outstanding performances as others caught up in the publicized fray.

The major big new musical deal this month is Dreamboats and Petticoats at the Playhouse (January 6-May 29) and extrapolated from the best-selling catch-all albums. The libretto, about two songwriters trying to win both a song contest and a young woman named Sue, is by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. Songs by Roy Orbison and other chartbusters are in the jukebox mix. Bob Thomson directs. Meanwhile, Olivier Award winner Delroy Atkinson and West End regular Gina Murray are featured in Jihad! The Musical, (Jermyn Street Theatre, January 8-February 6), a satirical romp in which an innocent young boy is targeted by an American reporter looking to create her own TV-ready terrorist.

Elsewhere, Douglas Carter-Beane’s play about Hollywood, The Little Dog Laughed, that gathered quite a favorable reputation stateside opens at the Garrick (January 8-April 10) with notables Tamsin Greig, Rupert Friend, and Gemma Arterton in the cast. Busy-busy Jamie Lloyd directs. A play with an even greater reputation is John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, which comes to the Old Vic (January 7-April 3). David Grindley guides Obi Abill, Lesley Manville, and Anthony Head through this look at advanced social-climbing. Yet another mouth-watering revival is Harold Pinter’s three-hander, The Caretaker at the Trafalgar Studios (January 12-April 17). Two of those on hand are the estimable Jonathan Pryce and Peter MacDonald.

Sean Mathias’ production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot — such a click last season — reopens at the Haymarket (January 21-April 3) with Ian McKellen returning but not Patrick Stewart. Ronald Pickup picks up the vacated role. Another returnee, this one across the river at the National is the Tom Stoppard-Andre Previn play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (January 9-February 17), about political repression and a symphony orchestra. The only other new action at the National is a comedy: Really Old, Like Forty Five, in the small Cottesloe (January 27-March 17). It takes up the subject of aging from a modern perspective, and is written by Tamsin Oglesby, directed by Anna Mackmin, and designed by the brilliant Lez Brotherston.

In the Fringe, the Bush will unveil James Graham’s drama, The Whiskey Taster (January 20-February 20). It has something to do with advertising and can therefore be expected to have cynical undercurrents. At the Soho is Midsummer (January 12-February 6) by the ubiquitous David Greig and Gordon McIntyre, directed by Greig. It’s a romantic comedy (with songs) about an Edinburgh week-end enjoyed by two thirtysomethings.

I Am Yusuf and This is My Brother opens at the Young Vic (January 19-February 6) and is written and directed by Amir Mizar Zuabi and concerns thwarted lovers. At the always intriguing Arcola is Innocence, by German playwright Dea Loher and translated by David Tushingham. Helena Kaut-Howson directs this drama about two dock workers who witness a drowning and are reluctant to do anything about what they’ve seen.

Both kids and adults can enjoy the return of Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai, which plays the Royal Albert Hall, January 5-February 14. The show is set deep within a magical forest, at the summit of a volcano, as a young man sets off an absurd adventure in the kaleidoscopic world populated by fantastical creatures.