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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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      New ‘Richard III’ Raises an Old Question: Who Should Wear the Crown?

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      A production at the Shakespeare’s Globe theater faced criticism because a nondisabled actor plays the scheming king. But disputes like these miss the point, our critic writes.When Michelle Terry, the artistic director at Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London, decided to put on a production of “Richard III” with a feminist twist, she probably didn’t expect accusations of discrimination. But that’s what she got. The run-up to the show’s premiere on Tuesday was overshadowed by a controversy over the fact that Terry had cast herself as villainous title character despite not having a physical disability.The play depicts a set of murderous machinations whereby Richard, Duke of Gloucester, achieves his ascent to the English throne in 1483, and the events leading to his demise at the hands of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who would become Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Richard, described as “deformed” in the play’s opening lines, has traditionally been portrayed as a hunchback — almost always by able-bodied actors, with only a few notable exceptions in recent years. (In 2022 Arthur Hughes, who has radial dysplasia, became the first disabled actor to play Richard for the Royal Shakespeare Company.)When Shakespeare’s Globe announced its casting earlier this year, the Disabled Artists Alliance, a British organization, published an open letter condemning it as “offensive and distasteful,” since Richard’s “disabled identity is imbued and integral to all corners of the script.”Shakespeare’s play, the statement added, “cannot be successfully performed with a non-physically-disabled actor at the helm.” The Globe issued a robust response pointing out that Richard would not be played as disabled in this production, and adding that, in any case, “the Shakespearean canon is based on a foundation of anti-literalism and therefore all artists should have the right to play all parts.”The Globe pushed back strongly against organizations like the Disabled Artists Alliance, which said Richard should be played by a disabled actor.Marc BrennerUntil relatively recently, it was uncontroversial to have a nondisabled actor play a disabled role. Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of an autistic character in “Rain Man” and Daniel Day-Lewis’s protagonist with cerebral palsy in “My Left Foot” both won best actor prizes at the Academy Awards in the late 1980s. These days, the practice is increasingly contentious: Jake Gyllenhaal received blowback when he played an amputee in “Stronger” (2017), as did Dwayne Johnson in the action movie “Skyscraper” (2018); Bryan Cranston was similarly criticized for playing a quadriplegic in “The Upside” (2019).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Where Culture Flows Along London’s River Thames

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      The Southbank Center, the host of this year’s British Academy Film Awards, has become a focal point of the city’s arts and culture scene.LONDON — As Lisa Vine looked out over the River Thames from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Southbank Center’s Royal Festival Hall main foyer, she recalled first coming here as an 11-year-old girl in 1957 to attend a concert.Over the decades, Ms. Vine, a retired teacher and native Londoner, who had stopped in for coffee on the way back from a nearby errand, has seen a lot of change here. She has not only watched the Southbank Center develop — with the Queen Elizabeth Hall opening in 1967 and the Hayward Gallery the next year — she has also seen the area around it grow and change, with the addition of artistic and performance spaces including the National Theater, the British Film Institute, the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe.“I remember when the river was dull,” she said, looking out at a panorama that includes the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Now, she noted, “there is so much going in terms of concerts and events, but I don’t get out here as often as I should.”That’s the sentiment of Londoners and visitors alike. With so much going on at the Southbank Center, from classical music concerts, dance premieres and D.J. sets to poetry, film and literature festivals, it would be impossible to attend every event. And all of those happenings — at a venue that’s open five nights a week, where about 3,500 annual events take place — have made the Southbank Center one of the focal points of London’s arts and culture scene.Hosting the British Academy Film Awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs, for the first time on Sunday is yet another big moment in the storied history of the space, which has had everyone from Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Jacqueline du Pré to David Bowie, Michelle Obama and Greta Thunberg grace its stages.The Royal Festival Hall, as seen from the Hungerford Bridge. The venue opened in 1951, kicking off the development of what would become the Southbank Center. Bjanka Kadic/Alamy“We’re so thrilled about the central location of the Royal Festival Hall and accessibility of the space, enabling us to program our most ambitious and inclusive night for attendees yet,” Emma Baehr, the BAFTAs’ executive director of awards and content, wrote in an email. (The awards have previously been hosted in various locations, most recently the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington.) “Southbank is the largest arts center in the U.K., home to the London Film Festival and in the heart of London on the River Thames — having staged our television awards there for several years, it felt a natural move for us.”The Royal Festival Hall — which seats 2,700 — was opened in 1951 by King George VI, along with his daughter Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, during the Festival of Britain, which was centered on the south bank of the Thames. The area had been devastated during World War II and its derelict buildings and factories were razed to build a number of temporary structures for the festival.During the next few decades, not only did the Southbank Center develop — both the 900-seat Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery, which holds contemporary art exhibitions, are fantastic examples of 1960s Brutalist architecture — but the area around it did, too.The British Film Institute, which hosts film festivals and has helped fund a number of films including the BAFTA-nominated movies “Aftersun” and “Triangle of Sadness,” opened its first theater in 1957 under the Waterloo Bridge. And the National Theater, under the direction of Laurence Olivier, opened its doors next to the institute in 1976.Members of the royal family, including Princess Elizabeth, center, opened the Southbank Center’s Royal Festival Hall in 1951 during the Festival of Britain.Associated PressThat festival centered on the redeveloped south bank of the Thames, where the Royal Festival Hall, right, sat alongside a typical British pub.Frank Harrison/Topical Press Agency, via Getty ImagesAbout a mile east is Shakespeare’s Globe, which first opened in 1599 and then burned down in 1613 during a performance of “Henry VIII” (a second theater was later built but was eventually closed by parliamentary decree in 1642). The newest version of the theater opened in 1997 and now houses two stages including the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, where plays and concerts are performed by candlelight. A stone’s throw from the Globe is the Tate Modern, the world-class modern and contemporary art museum housed in a former power station that opened its doors to the public in 2000.“I spend my life in a constant state of FOMO because there is always something happening,” said Stuart Brown, B.F.I.’s head of program and acquisitions, adding that the area is quite magical because of its location by the river and the architecture of the buildings. “You’ve got these incredible world-class artistic offerings to people through music, theater, visual arts, film, and all those experiences can inspire us, move us, make us think about the world differently.”The American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, backstage at the Royal Festival Hall circa 1963. Ms. Fitzgerald is among the luminaries who have appeared at the London venue. David Redfern/Redferns/Getty ImagesMusic has always been a highlight of the programming at the Southbank Center and with six resident orchestras — including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Aurora Orchestra — almost every evening there is some kind of concert.“Music is absolutely central to everything we do,” said Elaine Bedell, the chief executive of the Southbank Center. However, she added that classical music audiences globally had not returned to full pre-Covid strength and that that was something she and her colleagues wanted to address. “We have a very dynamic new head of classical music, Toks Dada, who has a very clear strategy and has very ambitious plans for bringing new audiences to classical music.”The Purcell Sessions have been part of that overall strategy to bring in younger audiences to various genres, including classical music. Housed in the same building as the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room is an intimate stage with just 295 seats. The series based there is a chance for up-and-coming musicians, some of whom work across different art forms, to showcase their talents. “It has always had this legacy of experimentation,” Ms. Bedell said. “The idea is, it’s a real space for collaboration, innovation and invention.”The Purcell Room, of course, is not the only space for collaboration and experimentation. For 40 years the Southbank Center has had an “open foyer” policy in the building that houses the Royal Festival Hall, which connects to the other Southbank buildings through a series of outdoor concrete walkways. Like the year-round free exhibitions, and the concerts outside during the summer Meltdown festival, the foyer is open to the public seven days a week as a civic space. Weekly music jams, dance groups and language clubs meet up there to practice.“That sense of openness and inclusiveness is the unique thing about the Southbank Center,” Ms. Bedell said, adding that there are cafes and restaurants scattered across the cultural campus that help add to the center’s revenue. “I like the idea that people kind of feel their way to use the space.”Over the years, the various cultural institutions along the river’s south bank have cross-pollinated on projects. For a number of years, the British Film Institute has used the Royal Festival Hall for premiere screenings during the London Film Festival. Last year during the Hayward Gallery’s exhibition “In the Black Fantastic,” which focused on Afrofuturism, the institute hosted a talk with Ekow Eshun, the show’s curator.“We have a warm and collaborative relationship with other organizations on the south bank, meeting regularly as leaders to learn from each other and share best practice,” Kate Varah, the executive director of the National Theater, wrote in an email. “We’re all asking similar questions as we navigate through the permacrisis, and it’s more important than ever that we share our experiences and have a forum for collective ideas.”During the lying-in-state of Queen Elizabeth in September, a number of the spaces worked together to entertain — through poignant music and archival film of the royal family — the thousands of mourners who stood in the queue that snaked past the cultural institutions before heading across the river to Westminster Hall.The interaction between the venues is just one of the reasons fans of the area like Ms. Vine say they love it so much.“It is a wonderful place, one of my favorites in London,” she said. 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      London Theater's Reopening: 'Flight,' 'Herding Cats' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

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      One “play” uses only voice-overs. Another features a main actor only on video. And under Covid rules, an 11-person Shakespeare cast counts as an army.LONDON — Theaters here are gradually reopening for business, but not in ways you might expect. Take the astonishing 45-minute installation at the Bridge Theater, “Flight.” A story of Afghan refugees crossing Europe to start a new life, this collaboration between the directors Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison uses diminutive claylike figures in revolving boxes to chart the journey of two boys, Kabir (a plaintive Nalini Chetty) and Aryan (Farshid Rokey), from Kabul to London.You learn of their quest via headphones (Emun Elliott is the adroit narrator) as you sit in a booth to which you’ve been led by a member of the staff. Although the project, from the Scottish company Vox Motus, seems an explicit response to coronavirus restrictions, “Flight” was in fact conceived before the pandemic and played at the Edinburgh Festival in 2017 before traveling widely, including to New York in 2018.The Bridge had scheduled a return engagement in collaboration with the Barbican in December, only to have it halted by a five-month lockdown. The current return offers an unmissable opportunity to experience something that may not technically qualify as theater — it’s just as much a shifting cyclorama — but speaks with piercing humanity. “Perhaps we could learn to fly,” one of the boys remarks, eager to reach his destination in any way he can, by which point the singular wonder of “Flight” has sent the heart soaring.A panoramic look at “Flight,” a collaboration by the directors Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison.Drew FarrellAnd what of actual actors? In this climate, don’t expect them all to share a stage. The recent Soho Theater revival of “Herding Cats,” Lucinda Coxon’s brittle 2010 play set in the world of online sex, had the distinguishing feature of beaming in the American actor Greg Germann (“Grey’s Anatomy”) live from Los Angeles. Appearing intermittently on a giant screen, Germann joined his British colleagues, Sophie Melville and Jassa Ahluwalia, in a play about the difficulty of making connections. How apposite, then, to have had one cast member a continent away.The production, directed by Anthony Banks, has finished its brief run but will be available June 7-21 via the video-on-demand service Stellar, and it will be interesting to see how its components link up online. Watching in a socially distanced theater, I was struck by my feeling of alienation from the characters. The fast-talking, angsty Justine quickly wears out her welcome in Melville’s frantic portrayal, and Ahluwalia can do only so much to flesh out the cryptic Michael, a pajama-wearing shut-in who makes his living on the telephone chat line that brings him into contact with Germann’s quietly threatening Saddo.Jassa Ahluwalia, in headphones, interacting with Greg Germann onscreen in Lucinda Coxon’s 2010 play “Herding Cats” at the Soho Theater.Danny KaanThe most arresting sight was the curtain call, in which the two onstage actors did their best to link hands with the looming figure of Germann during the bows. Might this mark some weird new way forward for trans-Atlantic productions, in which American actors become part of a London play without ever getting on a plane?The two onstage actors, Sophie Melville and Jassa Ahluwalia, in “Herding Cats.” Danny KaanAfter one show with no actors and another featuring only two in person, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the season opener at Shakespeare’s Globe, seems to be populated by a veritable army: Its 11-person cast represents a notably high number in these Covid-cautious times. But that figure is smaller than usual for this play and has been achieved by doubling of roles. The members of the ensemble, for instance, take turns playing that quicksilver fairy, Puck.The Globe, normally crowd-friendly, has blocked off rows of seats in accordance with government protocols, and the fabled yard, usually home to 700 “groundlings” standing shoulder to shoulder, offers carefully arranged chairs, still for the remarkably low price of 5 pounds, or $7. The production is a partially recast version of the “Dream” seen at the Globe in 2019, where it was the debut at the theater of the associate artistic director Sean Holmes.As was the case then, Holmes’s raucous approach works best as a colorful, elaborately costumed party, complete with streamers and a piñata, and with Titania (a sprightly Victoria Elliott) emerging from a recycling bin. Before the performance begins, the five-person Hackney Colliery Band warms things up with a brass-heavy version of “The Power of Love,” instructing the audience to “relearn how to clap.” Snatches of pop songs recur throughout the play, and Bryan Dick’s floppy-haired Lysander gives off a rock-star vibe.From left, Nadine Higgin, Sophie Russell, Victoria Elliott and Jacoba Williams at Shakespeare’s Globe in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Sean Holmes.Tristram KentonThe costumes are a carnival, mixing thigh-high boots with Elizabethan ruffs that seem to sprout from the young lovers’ backs and with turquoise headgear for Peter Bourke’s Oberon. Jacoba Williams’s Snout at one point appears in a pink skirt and sequins as if ready for an Abba tribute concert.An appeal early on from the weaver Bottom (Sophie Russell, delightful) to her colleagues in the “Pyramus and Thisbe” play-within-a-play to “spread yourselves” could have been written with the pandemic in mind, and Quince (Nadine Higgin) informs Flute (George Fouracres) that he can play Thisbe “in a mask” — which seems apt given the masks that the actors slip on as they move through the yard toward the stage. The physical intimacy associated with the play has also been adjusted: Rather than reclining into one another, the smitten Lysander and Hermia lie at right angles, only their footwear touching.This isn’t the most poetic “Dream” or the most reflective, but it offers one moment that stops the heart. It comes near the end when two senior characters abandon the rules and take hands in a firm gesture, held for a noticeably long while. There before us is the human connection that we have been deprived of for so long and that, with luck, may again become the norm as we move toward midsummer.Nadi Kemp-Sayfi, kneeling, in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”Tristram KentonFlight. Directed by Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison. Bridge Theater, through June 6.Herding Cats. Directed by Anthony Banks. Stellar, online, June 7-21.A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Directed by Sean Holmes. Shakespeare’s Globe, in repertory through Oct. 30. More