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    What to See on London Stages This Summer

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    British theater recommendations for visitors and residents of all ages — and inclinations.London’s theaters offer something for everyone. Whether in big West End venues or on stages tucked away above a pub, the city’s shows include the classics, new plays and some productions that defy classification. Open air playhouses attract audiences willing to brave the unpredictable summer weather, and venues spread throughout the city make for an accessible theater landscape that extends far beyond the heavily trafficked tourist hot spots.Whether you’re looking for frothy musicals or fiercely charged political writing, chances are your wishes can be answered somewhere around town. Below, in seven categories, are some of the shows vying for the attention of visitors and residents seeking out London theater this summer.Give Me Serious DramaDenise Gough as Emma and Malachi Kirby as Mark in “People, Places & Things.”Marc BrennerAlma MaterFew London playhouses generate as much buzz as the Almeida, and expectations are high for its run of this new play from the Australian playwright Kendall Feaver, whose theatrical debut, “The Almighty Sometimes,” impressed British critics when it played in Manchester, England, in 2018. Feaver’s latest is set on a university campus rocked by sexual assault allegations, and Polly Findlay directs a cast led by Phoebe Campbell and Justine Mitchell. Through July 20 at the Almeida Theater.The Boys from the BlackstuffThe regional accents may prove a challenge — especially if English isn’t your first language — but there’s no denying the passion and power that course through James Graham’s stage adaptation of this era-defining 1982 British TV show. Through a community of Liverpool road builders’ struggles, Kate Wasserberg’s empathic production reminds us that employment is crucial to self-esteem. Through Aug. 3 at the Garrick Theater. More

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      ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ Will Transfer to Broadway Next Fall

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      Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe, now starring in an Off Broadway revival, will lead the Broadway production as well.A starry revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” one of musical theater’s most beloved flops, will transfer to Broadway next fall, hoping to right the show’s oxymoronic reputation once and for all.The production, now midway through a sold-out run at Off Broadway’s small-scale New York Theater Workshop in the East Village, stars Daniel Radcliffe (yes, of “Harry Potter” fame) alongside two popular musical theater performers: Jonathan Groff (a Tony nominee for “Spring Awakening” and “Hamilton”) and Lindsay Mendez (a Tony winner for “Carousel”). All three will lead the Broadway cast, according to an announcement Friday; the production’s dates and the theater at which it will be staged were not specified.“Merrily,” with a much-loved score by Stephen Sondheim and an oft-bashed book by George Furth, holds a special place in musical theater lore: The original production, in 1981, was a fiasco so storied — it closed two weeks after opening — that it spawned an excellent documentary, “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened.”The show depicts, in reverse chronological order, the fracturing of a three-way friendship between a composer, a playwright and a novelist who meet in their early 20s. The musical is based on a 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.In the decades since the Broadway closing, the show has been revived and reimagined over and over and over again — Richard Linklater is now spending 20 years trying to film a version starring Ben Platt, Beanie Feldstein and Blake Jenner.This latest revival, which will be the first to reach Broadway since the original, is directed by Maria Friedman, a British actress who once starred in a “Merrily” run in England, and who has been developing her production for a decade, starting at Menier Chocolate Factory in London, followed by London’s West End (where it won the Olivier Award for best musical revival) and Huntington Theater Company in Boston.Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times and a longtime “Merrily” observer, praised the revival’s current Off Broadway production, writing “it is perhaps for the first time perfectly cast,” and concluding, “Maybe, finally, it’s a hit.” In The Washington Post, the critic Peter Marks called it “intoxicating” and “revelatory.”The lead producer of the revival will be Sonia Friedman — a prolific and powerful London-based producer who is also the sister of Maria Friedman. The producing team includes Sondheim’s widower, Jeff Romley, as well as David Babani, who is the artistic director of Menier Chocolate Factory, and Patrick Catullo. More