monday 18 september
 | | Fabulation returns to the Tricycle |
The Tricycle Theatre's hit production of Lynn Nottage's Fabulation, first seen earlier this year as part of the theatre's African-American season, returns there to open tonight (following previews from 14 September), for a run to 18 September. Indhu Rubasingham directs a cast led by Jenny Jules reprising her role as Undine, a successful publicist watching her once-stable life disintegrate before her eyes.
Box Office: 020 7328 1000 tuesday 19 september Jonathan Safran Foer's international best selling novel Everything is Illuminated is adapted for the stage by Simon Block, to open in Rachel O'Riordon's production at Hampstead Theatre tonight (following previews from 14 September). Gemma Jones, David Ryall, Denise Gough, Patrick Kennedy and Craig Parkinson star in a story that centres on a young Jewish New Yorker who arrives in the Ukraine to try to find and thank the woman who saved his grandfather in the Second World War.
Box Office: 020 7722 9301
 | | Amadeus begins a run to mid October |
ALSO TONIGHT: Matthew Kelly, who won an Olivier Award for Best Actor for his appearance in Of Mice and Men at the Savoy Theatre in 2003, returns to the London stage to appear as court composer Salieri in a new production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, opening at Wilton's Music Hall tonight (following previews from 14 September), for a run to 14 October. It is directed by John Doyle and will employ his now trademark style of featuring a cast of actor-musicians to simultaneously bring to life both the play's characters and the Mozart music at the heart of the story.
Box Office: 0870 060 1756 AND: the National Youth Theatre continue their 50th anniversary celebrations by staging a new production of Henry V which - in 1956 - was the first play the company ever produced, opening at Hackney Empire tonight in a double bill with Much Ado About Nothing, both of them presented in specially abridged adaptations by playwright Arnold Wesker.
Box Office: 020 8985 2424 wednesday 20 september The Royal Court Theatre presents the world premiere of Terry Johnson's latest play, Piano/ Forte, opening tonight (following previews from 14 September). Johnson's previous plays for the Royal Court include Hitchcock Blonde and Hysteria, both of which were subsequently seen in the West End, as well as Insignificance. The cast includes Kelly Reilly and Alicia Witt, playing women struggling to come to terms with the past, present and each other.
Box Office: 020 7565 5000
 | | Personality crisis: Bobby Baker with pea |
ALSO TONIGHT: performance artist Bobby Baker returns to the Barbican, where she was last seen during BITE 04 with her show Box Story, with a new version of How to Live (also previously seen at the Barbican). In this show, developed in consultation with psychologist Dr Richard Hallam and featuring original music by Jocelyn Pook, she offers a set of life-changing techniques as she leads an 'open session' with patients, including a frozen pea diagnosed with personality disorder.
Box Office: 0845 120 7550 thursday 21 september Daddy Cool, a new musical set to the music of 70s and 80s pop group Boney M opens at the West End's Shaftesbury Theatre (following previews from 22 August). Former EastEnders actress Michelle Collins stars opposite So Solid Crew's Harvey and Popstars: The Rivals finalist Javine. Andy Goldberg's production features choreography by Sean Cheesman to songs like Rivers of Babylon, Brown Girl in the Ring, Ma Baker and Mary's Boychild.
Box Office: 020 7379 5399
 | | A transfer for A Voyage Round My Father |
ALSO TONIGHT: John Mortimer's autobiographical play A Voyage Round My Father, revived at the Donmar Warehouse in June, transfers to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre, with Derek Jacobi reprising his role as Mortimer's father and Dominic Rowan playing the author himself in Thea Sharrock's production, opening tonight (following previews from 14 September) and booking to 16 December.
Box Office: 0870 950 0925 friday 22 september Will Keen and Frances O'Connor play the title roles of Tom and Viv in a new production of Michael Hastings' play based on the relationship between poet TS Eliot and his first wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood, opening tonight at the Almeida (following previews from 12 September). Originally seen at the Royal Court in 1984, it is now revived by director Lindsay Posner. Keen was last seen on the London stage in The Rubenstein Kiss at Hampstead Theatre, and American actress O'Connor last appeared onstage here in a West End revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Brendan Fraser. The cast also includes Anna Carteret and Benjamin Whitrow.
Box Office: 020 7359 4404
 | | Actor Alan Cumming |
ALSO TONIGHT: previews begin for the West End return of Martin Sherman's Bent at the Trafalgar Studios, prior to opening on 5 October. Daniel Kramer directs Scottish actor Alan Cumming and recent RADA graduate Chris New in this powerful drama about a relationship that evolves between two gay men in a Nazi concentration camp.
Box Office: 0870 060 6632 AND: previews also begin for another new production of a classic Nazi-era show: Kander and Ebb's Cabaret which returns to the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue with a cast that includes Anna Maxwell Martin as Sally Bowles, Michael Hayden as Clifford Bradshaw, and James Dreyfus as the MC.
Box Office: 0870 890 1107 monday 25 september The Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs presents Edgar Chias's On Insomnia and Midnight, opening tonight (following previews from 22 September), for a run to 7 October. Hettie MacDonald directs this Anglo-Mexican collaboration featuring actress Vanessa Bauche (best known for her appearances in Amores Perros and The Three Burials of Melquides Estrada) in her British debut.
Box Office: 020 7565 5000 tuesday 26 september
 | | Kevin Spacey takes centre stage again |
Kevin Spacey reunites with director Howard Davies, who directed him in the Almeida production of O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (which subsequently transferred to the Old Vic and then Broadway), for another O'Neill play, A Moon for the Misbegotten, back at the Old Vic, opening tonight (following previews from 15 September). They are joined by Eve Best and Colm Meaney.
Box Office: 0870 060 6628 ALSO TONIGHT: David Calder joins the cast of Tom Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll, to replace Brian Cox, for a six week extension of the play's run, now booking to 5 November at the Duke of York's Theatre.
Box Office: 0870 060 6623
 | | Restored and revised: Restoration |
AND: Headlong Theatre, the newly re-branded Oxford Stage Company, presents a substantially revised version of Edward Bond's Restoration, playing at Hackney Empire from tonight for a run to 30 September as part of a national tour. Bond's new version addresses current events to give the play a fierce contemporary resonance. It is directed by Headlong's artistic director Rupert Goold.
Box Office: 020 8985 2424 wednesday 27 september Wicked, the hit Broadway musical based on the previously untold story of the legendary witches from L Frank Baum's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, finally flies into London, opening at the Apollo Victoria tonight (following previews from 7 September). The original Tony award winning Broadway star Idina Menzel reprises her role as Elphaba, with Australian actress Helen Dallimore making her West End debut as Glinda. It is directed by Joe Mantello, who has previously staged Take Me Out at the Donmar Warehouse.
Box Office: 0870 4000 751 thursday 28 september Conor McPherson makes his National Theatre directing debut to stage his own new play The Seafarer, opening in the Cottesloe tonight (following previews from 20 September). Ron Cook, Conleth Hill, Karl Johnson and Jim Norton are amongst the cast of a play in which the arrival of a stranger from the distant past raises the stakes of a card game even higher. After its National Theatre run, the production will tour next year.
Box Office: 020 7452 3000
 | | A world premiere for the Lyric |
ALSO TONIGHT: an Anglo-Iranian cast star in the world premiere of Mehrdad Seyf's The Persian Revolution, opening at the Lyric Hammersmith's Studio tonight (following previews from 26 September) for a run to 14 October. A dark comedy that travels between time and decades, the topics of politics, religion, love, satire, sanitation and civil war go hand-in-hand with the fragile establishment of the first secular parliament in the Middle East.
Box Office: 08700 500 511 friday 29 september Previews begin tonight for the world premiere of a new adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis at Lyric Hammersmith, prior to opening on 4 October. The Lyric's artistic director David Farr joins forces with Gisli Orn Gardarrson, artistic director of Iceland's Vesturport, to conjure Kafka's world of mental aberration and social alienation with daring aerial physicality.
Box Office: 08700 500 511 (Interested? For more details and to book direct, go to the Useful Links in the right-hand column. You can find part one of September's diary by following the link below) | 
