Hi! I hope this post does not run afoul of the moderators, as I did not find a logical spot for it in the drop-down menu. I live in London and only return to the United States when I have family business in Iowa. So I guess this isn’t really a trip report, per se… BUT.
I often see questions here about what’s good/currently running in the theatre in London. I see a lot of theatre (worked in theatre in my youth) and I know that opinions about what is good are deeply personal, so I almost never make any recommendations for specific plays or musicals. That said, I have GOT to make an exception for The Royal Shakespeare Company’s current production of Cyrano de Bergerac, running through September 5 at the Noel Coward Theatre on Saint Martin’s Lane.
It stars Adrian Lester, the Olivier Award winner, who you may know from countless TV and film appearances - like his long-running turn as Mickey "Bricks" Stone in “Hustle,” among much else.
Lester‘s performance as Cyrano is one of the best performances by an actor that I have ever seen on the stage, and I just saw Toby Jones play Iago in Othello, and Ralph Fiennes (!!! OMG !!!) as Henry Irving in Grace Pervades. Both were gorgeous performances, but Adrian Lester honestly blew the top of my head off, blew my mind, tore my heart in twain, made me gasp, captured me thoroughly, moved me to the core, made me laugh and think and finally UGLY CRY in the 4th row of the stalls. (I was not alone. The man sitting in front of me, who looked like “Weird Al” Yankovic, was also sobbing, as were most of the women adjacent to me in rows E, F, and G.)
Anyway, if you’re going to be in London before September 5 and you like theatre and you want to see a performance for the ages in a vibrant, poetic, and beautiful production, go see this Cyrano. You will not regret it!