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Wyndham's Theatre

  • Theatre
  • Charing Cross Road
Wyndhams Theatre.jpg
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Time Out says

Busy West End home of serious drama

Wyndham’s is a West End theatre with genuine pedigree. It's named for Charles Wyndham, the 19th century actor who originally had it built, and he launched it in 1899 with a play where he played another acting legend, David Garrick. It was here that JM Barrie staged a series of plays from 1903; 'Rebecca' author Daphne du Maurier launched her play 'The Years Between'; fellow novelist Graham Greene chose it to premiere 1953’s ‘The Living Room’; and Edward Albee presented the autobiographical ‘Three Tall Women’ starring Maggie Smith. It is also where Madonna made her rather awkward West End debut in 2002.

Wyndham's has a grand Portland stone exterior, with neoclassical flourishes that ensure it cuts a dash on busy Charing Cross road. Inside, Wyndham's Theatre is all Louis XVI splendour. With 759 seats across four levels, it's one of the West End's more intimate venues, meaning you get a good view of the action at most price points. 

Basically the order of the day is serious plays and quality comedies, often starring big names, plus the occasional short run for a successful comedian. Runs are typically limited for this busy house, and absolutely do not go expecting to catch a musical here.

Details

Address:
Charing Cross Road
London
WC2H 0DA
Transport:
Tube: Leicester Square; Rail: Charing Cross
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What’s on

Long Day’s Journey Into Night

  • Drama

Although it may seem a bit on the nose for Brian Cox to make his long-awaited stage return playing the ailing patriarch of an American family, this is absolutely not ‘Succession’. Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ is at the very least a strong contender for the greatest American play of all time, a three-hour-plus semi-autobiographical epic that O’Neill refused to share publicly in his own lifetime, and won him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1957. It concerns the Tyrell family, headed by father James, an actor who achieved success by squandering his talent and playing a single commercially successful role repeatedly for most of his life (as O’Neill’s own father did with a production of ‘The Count of Monet Cristo’). The story follows the family’s implosion over the course of a single day, as long-held resentments emerge between James (Cox), his addled wife Mary (award-winning US actor Patricia Clarkson) and their embittered sons Edmund (Laurie Kynaston) and James Jr (Daryl McCormack), with Louisa Harland rounding out the cast as their maid Cathleen. Jeremy Herrin directs what may or may not prove Cox’s stage swansong, but should in any case be a monumental night at the theatre.

Next to Normal

  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Musicals

This review is from August 2023. ‘Next To Normal’ transfers to Wyndham’s Theatre in June 2024. The entire Donmar cast will return. It’s taken Broadway indie smash ‘Next To Normal’ a walloping 15 years to make it to London. I’m not totally sure why: probably something to do with investors getting spooked by the West End failure of the not-dissimilar ‘Spring Awakening’. But this UK debut for Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s Pulitzer winner has been a long time coming. And outgoing Donmar Warehouse boss Michael Longhurst matches the pent-up demand with a sensational production – even if I’m doubtful whether the musical itself lives up to the hype. In particular, it’s a privilege to see Broadway star Caissie Levy in the lead part of bipolar mum/mom Diana, whose inability to get over a tragedy that occurred 18 years ago is the engine of the story. She is remarkable in a role that requires her to shift between emotional extremes at the drop of a pin, and has a tremendous voice, pure and clean and cutting. In a very real sense she is the show: it’s her total belief in Diana that keeps the whole thing soaring in spite of some very questionable writing. Jamie Parker is excellent as Dan, Diana’s loyal husband, who has sacrificed his own happiness in order to look after her, but has seemingly confined them both to a cage wrought from his good intentions. And there’s fine work from Eleanor Worthington-Cox as Diane and Dan’s daughter Natalie, who has grown into a deeply neurotic young woman un

Oedipus

  • Drama

Dazzlingly talented Brit director Robert Icke’s Dutch production of ‘Oedipus’ – by Icke, after Sophocles – was due to hit these shores in 2020, with Helen Mirren returning to the stage to take on the role of the title character’s mother-slash-lover Jocasta. The pandemic put paid to that, and who knows if Mirren will ever act on stage again. But the production is finally here and we’re not going to complain about the casting: Mark Strong will star as Oedipus (his first stage role since Icke’s ‘The Red Barn’ in 2016), while the extraordinary Lesley Manville will star as Jocasta.  As ever with Icke, his version of ‘Oedipus’ is very much not a period production: it’s a modern dress adaptation, set on the eve of a tumultuous election. There are no exact dates yet, but it will run at Wyndham’s Theatre from October 4 – to be the first to find out further details of the run, sign up at the show’s website.

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