Noël Coward Theatre

A baker, a witch and a boy with a cow walk into the woods. It sounds like the set-up to a dodgy Christmas cracker joke, but plenty of Londoners already know how this one ends, given Jordan Fein’s lavish revival of Sondheim’s subversive fairytale musical Into the Woods spent last year packing out the Bridge and hoovering up Oliviers. Now it’s crossed the river to the Noël Coward with a mostly new cast, and it’s every bit as good.  Sondheim and book writer James Lapine throw Cinderella, Jack, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood into the same forest as a childless baker and his wife, and then ask what happens after ‘happily ever after.’ It’s the show’s first West End run since 1991, and if your only previous encounter with it is Meryl Streep and James Corden on Disney+, you’re in for a much stranger night.  Kate Fleetwood is back as the Witch and she owns every inch of stage. She first appears looking thoroughly fed up, like the cynical aunt you only see at Christmas who’s had beef with your parents for decades. She stands on the kitchen table barking orders at the Baker and his Wife, then sprawls across the counter to finish the job, lounging as if she’s on a sunbed while they scurry about beneath her. The Baker and his Wife are petrified, but Fleetwood keeps slipping in moments where she’s a bit ridiculous, even a bit sad, and those are what makes her more memorable than a panto baddie.  John Dagleish and Laura Pitt-Pulford are new as the Baker and his Wife, and they’re a...

There has, somewhat astonishingly, never been a British production of Tracy Letts’ all-time classic August: Osage County. The original US production transferred to the National Theatre, and the classic 2013 film included a couple of big name British actors, but there’s never been a domestic production before – in part, one suspects, because it’s three-and-a-half hours long and requires an enormous cast.  For its twentieth anniversary, the 2007 drama about an addled, acidic Oklahoma family devouring itself over the course of a month finally gets a Brit production , which will be directed by Jeremy Herrin – who loves a meaty US epic – and will star Lesley Manville as prescripton medication addicted matriarch Violet Weston and Anna Maxwell-Martin as her controlling daughter Barbara. That leaves a lot of roles uncast, and while it would be reasonably to expect hugh names Manville and Maxwell-Martin to be the the most famous ensemble members, expect some talented actors to fill out the numerous other roles.

Michael Sheen has quite a history with Peter Shaffer’s masterpiece Amadeus. He first starred in it as a young man, way back in 1998, playing the naive, vulgar, supernaturally gifted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the Old Vic, opposite David Suchet as his embittered nemesis Antionio Saliere. A few years back, Sheen took on the mantle of Salieri for a production in Sydney that undertstandably made relatively few waves over here. Now he’ll bring a fresh take on Salieri to the West End – the next London outing for his new Welsh National Theatre. Sheen has been no stranger to the London stage of late, but the fact Amadeus will be his first West End outing in 20 years underscores the fact that he seems to have thoroughly changed his life and habits for the sake of WNT, which he leads. It’s the company’s biggest show to date, and the first without a Welsh director, with the experienced Jeremy Herrin doing the honours. It will, nonetheless, debut in Cardiff (at the New Theatre, Mar 9-27 2027) before locking in a 16-week run at the Noël Coward. It will also feature a major rising Welsh star alongside Sheen in the form of It’s A Sin man Callum Scott Howells. Set in Vienna, 1820, the story follows an obsessed Salieri’s attempt to destroy the incadescently talented prodigy Mozart – exactly how ‘true’ it is, it remains a remarkable work about jealousy and genius.  Note that there appear to be no weekday matinees, presumably connected to Sheen’s new side hustle presenting quiz show Pointless.