The first main house play in David Byrne’s reign at the Royal Court is one that was made earlier: following her restaging of her play ‘little scratch’ at his old gaff the New Diorama Theatre, the great Brit auteur director Katie Mitchell remounts her 2019 German adaptation of Maggie Nelson’s ‘Bluets’, an essay on grief, sadness and the colour blue.
That’s not to say that this is anything other than a great piece of leftfield programming from Byrne, though: the Court has gone without a really successful Downstairs theatre show for what feels like years – Mitchell’s rep alone is enough to sell ‘Bluets’, but it’s also enough to get a very exciting cast headed by Paddington Bear himself Ben Whishaw, who’ll star alongside Emma D’Arcy and Kayla Meikle.
There’s a new English language adaptation of the show by rising star playwright Margaret Perry.
