The Playboy of the Western World

New National Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham has said she’d like to internationalise the NT more during her tenue, and certainly one striking element of her first announced programming are two collaborations with Dublin’s Abbey theatre and its artistic director Caitríona McLaughlin. Admittedly one isn’t for a while: Paul Mescal will star in Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark in 2027. Rather earlier, though, is a big old revival for John Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, a lyrical dark comedy that follows Christy Mahon, a young man who stumbles into the pub claiming to have killed his own father – something that greatly impresses the fickle locals. Nicola Coughlan, Éanna Hardwicke, Siobhán McSweeney and Marty Rea will all star in McLaughlin’s production.