November on the London Stage: Nero, a Radiohead Hamlet and a Sondheim Celebration

From an infamous emperor to a pioneering scribe and musicals honoring two great composers who are no longer with us, November on the London stage offers a characteristically broad bill of fare. That several Olivier and Tony trophy-bearers are folded into the mix ramps up the excitement. For more about what’s on offer, read on.

Women’s Writes
The journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913–1965) is clearly having a moment both sides of the Atlantic. New York is soon to premiere the off-Broadway musical Kilgallen, while Torben Betts’ new play, Speculations, tackles the same subject at London’s Marylebone Theatre; two-time Olivier winner Janie Dee (Carousel, Comic Potential) plays the inquisitive reporter who achieved separate renown as a panelist on the TV quiz show What’s My Line? “I’m interested in a woman that had courage and was brave in a world where it was still a very new thing for women to be working,” said Dee. “People would listen to what she was saying, which was unusual for a woman at that time.” The actress, meanwhile, is being guided in this play by Trevor Nunn, who gave us Cats and Les Misérables and helped run the Royal Shakespeare Company. “He has the most incredible energy,” Dee said of the veteran director, now 86. “It’s a great honor and inspiration to be in the room with him.”

Born to Rule
Duncan Sheik died in September at age 56, so attention will be doubly focused on the belated premiere, opening November 6 at Southwark Elephant in southeast London, of his long-aborning musical Nero. Andrew Barth Feldman (Dear Evan Hansen, Maybe Happy Ending) makes his British stage debut as the fearsome Roman ruler of the title, and Lindsay Posner (Equus, The Truth) directs. “I never met Duncan or got to talk with him,” an expansive Feldman told Broadway.com with reference to a show that, like Sheik’s breakout hit Spring Awakening, has book and lyrics by Steven Sater. “So I feel like I’m having this extended conversation with him through his music.” Any parallels between goings-on in Nero’s own grim times and now are very much intended. “That’s why we’re doing the show,” said Feldman. “We keep coming back to how eerily relevant it is.”

Celestial
Caryl Churchill’s landmark 1979 play Cloud 9 continues to amaze even now, set as it is between Colonial Africa in the first act and 1970s London after the intermission. This most recent production opens November 10 at the National’s Lyttelton auditorium under the keen eye of Dominic Cooke, himself a longtime interpreter of the maverick 88-year-old author. The cast includes Tom Mothersdale, Charlotte Ritchie and Critics’ Circle Award winner Stuart Thompson (Spring Awakening). “It feels as if they’re two different plays, but of course they inform one another,” said the ever-engaging Thompson, who appears as the son in the second act of the woman he plays earlier on. As for his choice to take on this play after the demanding Almeida revival this past summer of Sarah Kane’s Cleansed, Thompson pointed to his fondness for a challenge. “I think you clarify for yourself over time what it is that makes you want to get up in front of an audience—and I just want to get better and better.”

Hail, Hamlet
Shakespeare’s signature play has been adapted countless times, but not usually tethered to the music of Thom Yorke and his rock band, Radiohead. That conjoining of talents is the driving force behind Hamlet Hail to the Thief, which opens November 12 at the Barbican after out-of-town runs in Manchester and Stratford-upon-Avon. Its star, Samuel Blenkin, has been on stage in Christmas Day at the Almeida and Bach and Sons at the Bridge, not to mention as Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, but playing the greatest of Danes in a pared-back, 100-minute version (no intermission) is something else again. “I’m aware of the absurd privilege and quite intimidating lineage of actors who have played this role, but I’ve had to let that go so the play can be what it is.” And he’s fully aware of the heft brought to the material by the choice of music. “We’re allowing Thom’s work to speak as loudly as the play: the clash between these two works of art is what makes this exciting.”

Not A Day Goes By
Stephen Sondheim died November 26, 2021, so what better way to mark the fifth anniversary of the landmark composer’s passing than with a one-night-only concert, Colour and Light, at central London’s St. James’ Piccadilly on November 21? Its host is Jak Malone, who shot to attention with his Olivier and Tony-winning performance in Operation Mincemeat. “One thing I found when I was in New York was that everyone has a Sondheim story,” the Liverpool-born performer recalled of his time on Broadway, “and I was so jealous: he strikes me as a person who left such an impact on the people he met.” Fronting a company that mixes seasoned pros (David Bedella and Lucy Schaufer among them) with emerging talent, Malone spoke of wanting “to keep things pretty informal. I want the mood to be upbeat and fun while still paying total respect.” As Joanne might say in Company, we’ll drink to that.

Space Age
The fast-rising playwright Ryan Calais Cameron has had two plays transfer from the Royal Court to the West End, and now the author of For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy and Retrograde is going for a third with the opening November 23 at the Chelsea venue of The Afronauts, produced in conjunction with the impresario Nica Burns. Telling of the Zambian space mission in 1964, the play stars the great Lucian Msamati (Slow Horses, Waiting for Godot) as Edward Nkoloso, who coined the term of the title in an effort to bring Africa into the space race. “For me, writing is always about deep human stories and the most fascinating way to tell them,” said the eloquent Cameron, who is co-directing the play with Monique Touko while raising four young sons with his wife, Shavani, whom he met doing a play in 2011 at—yes—the Royal Court. How does this multi-hyphenate, who began as an actor, feel about being the closing entry in the Court’s 70th anniversary season? “It’s massive,” he said, “massive. This has been a truly special place for me, and I really hope I can honor that with this play.”