Hampstead Theatre

When Richard Nelson's Springwood was announced last year, it arrived with an impressive pedigree: it was set to mark Stanley Tucci's directorial debut. Since then, Tucci has dropped out (starry scheduling conflicts!), with US playwright Nelson stepping into the director’s chair himself. It's hard not to wonder whether Tucci might have coaxed something more dynamic from the material.  This stage adaptation of Nelson’s film Hyde Park on Hudson dramatises the 1939 state visit to the United States, when King George VI and the future Queen Mother met President Franklin D Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for the first time. Here, then, are the origins of the so-called ‘special relationship’. Hitler’s power is on the rise, and Britain is desperate for an ally. But before they can secure American support, they must first survive a country-house weekend, a public picnic and the thorny business of mastering beer etiquette and eating hot dogs with dignity.  So, there’s the initial question of whether opposites can actually attract. Yet as the President and the King spend more time together, they discover they have more in common than first appears. Robert Lindsay's Roosevelt is an easy-going, wise-cracking paternal figure, while Andrew Havill’s Bertie – as the king is known – is awkward, reserved and still finding his feet as monarch. They bond over whisky, conversations about women, stamp collecting and public perception, but also through their shared experiences of...

A big coup for Hampstead Theatre here, as it bags the UK premiere of the wildly acclaimed US indie musical Kimberley Akimbo. Created by composer Jeanine Tesori and writer David Lindsay-Abaire, it’s an all-singing adaptation of Adams’s relatively obscure 2000 play of the same name, which follows the eponymous heroine, a 16-year-old girl afflicted by a rare/essentially magical disease that makes her age four times faster than usual. This means she has the appearance of an elderly woman while essentially being a teen. And apparently it’s wonderful! It bagged multiple wins at the 2023 Tony Awards – including the all important best new musical – and ran for a year-and-a-half on Broadway. Now it’s headed over here, albeit in a brand new production from Michael Longhurst, who did such a bang up job at the same address a few years back with Tesori’s Caroline, or Change.