Glenn Close Revisits Sunset, Game of Thrones Heartthrob Kit Harington Takes the Stage & More in the London Datebook

A Broadway legend recreates her stage role as a screen legend of a bygone era in the same month that sees a fresh West End revival of what is widely considered the first great Broadway musical. Plus, several hefty new British plays and a meaty revival that brings TV’s Jon Snow back to the stage. For more on these and other theatrical enticements read on.

APRIL 4-10
With One (More) Look: Glenn Close returns to her signature stage role when the three-time Tony-winner opens April 4 at the Coliseum as the fading silent film icon Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, a role she first played more than two decades ago in Los Angeles and then on Broadway. Michael Xavier is her Joe Gillis. Lonny Price directs at the same venue where he staged Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel in Sweeney Todd last year.

ALSO: The brilliant Timothy Spall, father of actor Rafe Spall and veteran of many Mike Leigh films, takes the leading role in Matthew Warchus’ revival of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, opening April 6 at the Old Vic. Daniel Mays and George MacKay complete the cast. Oscar and Tony nominee Stephen Rea stars at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in Cyprus Avenue. David Ireland’s play, co-produced with Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, opens April 7 and is directed by Vicky Featherstone, who runs the Court.

APRIL 11-17
Mischief Makers: Mischief Theatre, the irrepressible young troupe behind both Peter Pan Goes Wrong (due for a West End return toward the end of the year) and the still-running The Play That Goes Wrong, will attempt to make it three hits for three with the premiere at the Criterion Theatre of The Comedy About a Bank Robbery—the company’s first show set in the U.S. The authors, as before, are Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer. Previews continue prior to an April 21 opening.

ALSO: Linda Marlowe heads the cast of In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, a little-known Tennessee Williams play that opens April 11 at the Charing Cross Theatre, with Robert Chevara directing. The Almeida Theatre—twice-represented on Broadway this season with King Charles III and American Psycho—opens the new Leo Butler play Boy the following night; Sacha Wares is at the helm.

APRIL 18-24
Faustian Pact: Final full week of previews at the Duke of York’s Theatre of the ever-busy director Jamie Lloyd’s production of the Christopher Marlowe repertory mainstay Doctor Faustus, starring Game of Thrones heartthrob Kit Harington in the title role and Olivier Award winner and Tony nominee Jenna Russell as the unexpected choice to play Mephistopheles.

ALSO: Previews begin April 22 at Southwark Playhouse of the European premiere of the off-Broadway musical, The Toxic Avenger, directed by Benji Sperring and starring Mark Anderson and Hannah Grover. Musical theater buffs will be heading to the Chichester Festival Theatre south of London for previews of Travels With My Aunt, the new musical from the Betty Blue Eyes team of George Stiles and Anthony Drewe with a book by the Emmy-winning Americans Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman (Queer as Folk). Patricia Hodge plays the role of Aunt Augusta for which Maggie Smith was nominated for a 1972 Oscar.

APRIL 25-MAY 1
Rolling Along: The granddaddy of Broadway musicals, Show Boat, gets a major London airing when actor-turned-director Daniel Evans transfers his Sheffield Theatre production of the 1927 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II classic to the New London Theatre. Gina Beck and American performer Chris Peluso play the romantic leads Magnolia and Gaylord with Rebecca Trehearn as Julie and Emmanuel Kojo as Joe. Opening night is April 25.

ALSO: Elegy, the new play from Constellations scribe Nick Payne, opens on April 27 at the Donmar Warehouse. It stars Zoe Wanamaker, Nina Sosanya, and Barbara Flynn; Donmar artistic director Josie Rourke directs. Previews start April 28 at the Hampstead Theatre for the premiere of Lawrence After Arabia, Howard Brenton’s play about T.E. Lawrence, the British adventurer and diplomat who was immortalized onscreen by the legendary Peter O’Toole. John Dove, whose London production of Farinelli and the King has been mooted for a Broadway run next season, directs.