What’s On This September with UK Theatre Network
September is shaping up to be a remarkable month for theatre across the UK, with major West End productions, new plays, touring musicals, comedy and some much-loved favourites all competing for our attention. And with the launch of the new UK Theatre Network What’s On service, we can now do more than tell you about them.
For the first time, you can browse hundreds of productions and thousands of performances through UK Theatre Network, check dates and ticket prices and then book the shows you want to see. There are already more than 600 productions in the listings, covering London and venues across the country, and the selection is constantly changing as new performances are added.
So, with rather a lot to choose from, we thought we should start by picking out some of the shows catching our eye this week and over the days ahead.
What’s on this week
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is currently at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London, but you haven’t got long if it is on your list. Its current run ends on 12 September. Frequently regarded as one of Stoppard’s finest plays, Arcadia moves between two centuries as mathematics, science, history and rather more human passions collide in an English country house.
There’s more wonderfully uncomfortable human behaviour at the Harold Pinter Theatre, where Abigail’s Party continues until 19 September. Mike Leigh’s suburban classic has lost remarkably little of its ability to make an audience laugh and squirm at the same time, and Beverly and Laurence’s drinks party remains one of British theatre’s most recognisable social disasters.
Over at the Phoenix Theatre, Stranger Things The First Shadow continues to bring Hawkins to the West End. Set before the events of the television series, the production has become a theatrical event in its own right and is a particularly interesting choice for anyone who thinks theatre and spectacular visual storytelling don’t necessarily belong in the same sentence.
Musical fans have plenty to choose from too. Operation Mincemeat continues its extraordinary journey from small-scale production to West End phenomenon, while Barnum is back in the spotlight and Burlesque The Musical is taking its combination of music, spectacle and familiar characters around the country.
Then there are the productions that have become fixtures of British theatre. Wicked, Disney’s The Lion King, Moulin Rouge! The Musical and The Mousetrap continue to draw audiences, while newer arrivals are beginning to establish long runs of their own.
Looking ahead to next week
The choice gets even broader as September progresses. My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?) returns to the West End at the Apollo Theatre from 16 September. Rob Madge’s autobiographical show grew from childhood home performances into a hugely successful celebration of family, identity and the joy of putting on a show, however ambitious the production values might have been at the age of twelve.
Later in the month, the London stage becomes particularly starry. Rory Kinnear takes on the role of economist John Maynard Keynes in James Graham’s new play The Standard of Living at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, while Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup tackle Edward Albee’s ferocious Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at @sohoplace.
There is also the prospect of Christine Baranski and Richard E Grant in Noël Coward’s Hay Fever at Wyndham’s Theatre, while Sting returns to The Last Ship for a limited run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. It is difficult to remember many weeks when quite so many familiar names have arrived on London stages at almost the same time.
But UK Theatre Network has never been only about London. Our new listings include productions and performances across Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent and many other towns and cities, with touring shows moving through venues around the country.
That national picture is something we want to develop much further. A great production shouldn’t become invisible simply because it isn’t playing within a few miles of Leicester Square.
A new chapter for UK Theatre Network
There is something particularly satisfying about launching What’s On this year because UK Theatre Network began 25 years ago with a remarkably similar idea.
Back then, the ambition was simply to use the internet to help promote theatre. This was before Facebook and LinkedIn, and long before social media became the obvious way for a production or venue to reach an audience. Over the years we built a team, and today around 20 reviewers across the UK go out and see productions, share their opinions and, we hope, occasionally introduce our readers to something they might otherwise have missed.
What we couldn’t do was complete the journey.
We could tell you that a show was worth seeing, but then we had to send you elsewhere to work out when it was playing, where it was going next and how to get a ticket.
Now we can.
The new UK Theatre Network What’s On brings together more than 600 shows and thousands of individual performances. You can discover something that catches your eye, find where and when it is playing, see ticket prices and available dates and then book.
We’re not trying to become the next Ticketmaster. We’re doing what we’ve been doing for the last 25 years, just rather more of it. We want to promote theatre, support productions and help keep audiences walking through the doors of our great theatres.
So have a browse, find something you haven’t seen before and, most importantly, go and see some theatre.
Discover What’s On at UK Theatre Network
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