Alicia Vikander will make her theatre debut in London opposite Andrew Lincoln in ‘The Lady from the Sea'
The Bridge Theatre has had a big juicy hole in its programming for some months now, smack bang between the imminent return of Nicholas Hytner's ecstatic immersive A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jordan Fein's revival of Sondheim's immortal Into the Woods.
We'd hoped a starry play with an interesting director might plug the gap, and lo! It has come to pass. In a busy year for Ibsen adaptations – following the Lyric Hammersmith's Ghosts, the Ewan McGregor-starring My Master Builder and a Lily Allen-led spin on Hedda Gabler over in Bath – auteur Aussie director Simon Stone will put his own spin on The Lady from the Sea. And he's got some heavyweight leads in the shape of Andrew Lincoln and – in her stage debut – Academy Award-winning Swedish actor Alicia Vikander.
Ibsen's 1889 drama concerns Ellida, a woman who has settled for a comfortable life that is shaken to the core when an old lover re-emerges. As with all Simon Stone's works – most famously his Billie Piper-starring West End hit Yerma – the play is a modern interpretation that he himself has adapted and directed, so it's hard to say precisely what details of the original will be retained, but he should do something pretty enthralling with it.
Vikander is a prolific screen actor best known for playing Lara Croft in the 2018 version of Tomb Raider and for her Oscar-winning supporting turn in 2015's The Danish Girl. Lincoln was a regular on UK stages before finding major US success with The Walking Dead. Technically his last London stage role was playing Scrooge at the Old Vic's A Christmas Carol in 2020, though the show was performed in front of webcams in an empty theatre due to the pandemic.
Vikander will play Ellida, and Lincoln her husband Edvard (whether the family name remains Wangel is TBC). There's a third major role of Ellida's dangerous ex-lover – in Ibsen simply called The Stranger – that is still to be cast, but all will presumably be revealed soon-ish. The show goes on general sale May 13, and you'll be able to .
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Huge US TV star goes unnoticed running errands in London – would you have recognised her?
ONE of the biggest names in Hollywood almost went unnoticed as she ran errands in London's Trafalgar Square. Vanessa Williams is currently in London starring as the fictional fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the West End production of The Devil Wears Prada. 4 4 The former Miss America, 62, was spotted looking very chic on the warm London day with a thick ponytail and wearing a black t-shirt tucked into wide-leg, white trousers. Vanessa completed the stylish look with black platform heels. She carried a black fringe bag and stopped for selfies for the few fans who recognised her near the famous London landmark. The Ugly Betty actress is starring in the musical at the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Rd, about a 15 minute walk away from where she was spotted on Saturday afternoon. The musical based on the bestselling novel and blockbuster film, tells the story of an aspiring journalist who lands a job at Runway magazine. Vanessa debuted in the role when the musical opened in London 's West End on October 24, 2024. The music in the show is composed by none, other than Sir Elton John. However, Vanessa's time in London has not been without tragedy. She revealed in January that her mother died in the English capital after making the trip to watch her perform. Vanessa cited a 'major decline in health ' as the cause of her mother's death. Sharing a statement to her Instagram with the sad news, she told fans: "On December 28th, the world lost a powerhouse, dynamo and force of nature packed into a 5ft frame. "Our mom, Helen Williams, aka Gaga to many, took her final bow in London 20 days after celebrating her 85th birthday surrounded by family and friends. "It's impossible to describe all she meant to everyone because each person saw a different facet of her. Loyal friend to many, icy stares to a chosen few." In 2012 Vanessa and her mother co-authored a book together, titled 'You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss'. 4
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘My heart is pounding': Experiencing Rachel Zegler's Evita balcony scene from the humble pavement
Move over Romeo: theatre's second most famous balcony scene has stolen the show. Every night this week Rachel Zegler has emerged halfway through Jamie Lloyd's production of Evita at the London Palladium to sing its biggest number to the Oxford Circus crowds. Last weekend the Hollywood ingenue was serenading surprised shoppers, but since her performance of Don't Cry For Me Argentina went viral it's become the hottest (free) ticket in the West End. Some stand in wait for two hours to catch the seven-minute scene. But what is the experience actually like – and is it worth hanging around for? On Wednesday night, the crowd was a mix of musical theatre fans and Rachel Zegler stans. Most were in their 20s and 30s, although an older couple on holiday from Nebraska had been sent along by their daughter, and Susan, who had been there longest, was a 76-year-old who had seen the original production with Elaine Paige. 'We're both interested in the accessibility of the arts,' said 25-year-old Sian, who had come with her drama-school buddy. 'I don't know the show, but I know that the context of the song is her singing out to the peasants. And we're the peasants!' That sense only increased when theatregoers stepped out during the interval to video the ticketless hordes on their phones. Some in the crowd had already seen the show and were returning for an IRL version of the performance they had watched on screen inside the playhouse. 'Evita's my favourite musical and I've seen a number of productions,' said 37-year-old Rowena. 'But this one's really cleverly done: the staging's very bare, no props or decoration really, but they do a lot with it.' Around 9pm a stage hand emerged on to the balcony to unleash the long-armed camera that would capture the images projected to the audience inside. A dozen chorus members costumed in athleisure emerged on to the street and hush descended as their faces were dabbed by attendant make-up artists. 'I'm actually not ready for this,' a young man whispered. 'My heart is pounding.' A few moments later the song's intro piped over the speakers – its familiar melody sung out by strings – and Zegler glided across to the centre of the balcony with a blond updo and huge diamond clusters glittering from her neck and ears. She looked out over the crowd tenderly, and a little searchingly, as if looking for connection, before beginning with those iconic lines: 'It won't be easy, you'll think it strange…' It's a famous song that's been interpreted in different ways by stars from Patti Lupone to Madonna. Zegler's voice has a clarity and innocence well suited to its frequently ingenuous lyrics. Her tiny Disney princess hands clasped the edge of the iron railing and there was even a Snow White smile. But you felt a sense of Eva Perón's egoism and manipulation as the diva gestures – the regal wave, the arms to the sky – took over and Game of Thrones lovers may have found themselves having Daenerys Targaryen flashbacks. By the end she was turning away from us to secure her closeup, proclaiming 'Every word is true' even as flutes trilled laughingly in the background. The crowd's whooping and applause became as much a part of the performance as the chorus's accompanying hums. By the time Perón was spouting her Robin Hood lies about stealing from the oligarchs for the good of the people, Argyll Street was screaming its approval. The fact that the road remains open as a pedestrian thoroughfare during the performance added colour, with passersby approaching door staff to ask what on earth was going on. And the speed of dispersal when Zegler returned inside was theatrical magic: the street transformed from the Casa Rosada back to a grimy shortcut to the tube in a Cinderella instant. Nina, from Argentina, was one of the handful of ardent fans who stuck around a further hour to join the secondary crowd of autograph-hunters by the stage door after the show. She was impressed by Zegler's pronunciation, and wished she could see the whole production. But all the cheap tickets for under-30s were sold out, and the rest were too expensive.
Telegraph
10 hours ago
- Telegraph
Disney legend Alan Menken: The dwarves are the whole point of Snow White
'Are we going to talk about Disney and woke?' Alan Menken makes a horrified face and draws a finger across his neck in a throat-cutting mime. 'I'm going to pull the plug on this interview if there is any mention of Disney and politics!' He's joking. Having composed some of the most memorable scores in the history of animation, including nine for Disney – from The Little Mermaid to Beauty and the Beast – Menken is not about to let a culture-war kerfuffle throw him off balance. 'It's fine,' he says. 'Ask me anything.' We are meeting a few months ahead of the West End opening of Hercules, a new stage-musical version of Disney's 1997 animated riff on Greek mythology, set to Menken's original gospel-driven score (with lyrics by David Zippel). 'It's a very sophisticated score stylistically,' he says. 'It has a lightness to it and a rhythmic propulsion.' A native New Yorker, Menken doesn't do false modesty – and why should he? After all, he's one of only 27 people ever to have achieved the EGOT, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. His last Academy Award came in 1996, for Pocahontas, though he's been nominated multiple times since. 'The Oscars have dried up because I've won eight of them now.' Yet it's another Disney production, the live-action remake of Snow White – not a film that Menken had anything to do with – which is dominating the headlines when we meet and that will, in the weeks that follow its woeful box-office performance, come to be seen as a nadir in the studio's muddled, frequently controversial project to update its much-loved back catalogue. At the time, Rachel Zegler, Snow White's leading lady, was drawing criticism from some quarters for comments she had made about Palestine, while the decision to have computer-generated dwarfs in an otherwise human cast had gone down badly with just about everyone. 'How you deal with all this stuff, it's as tricky as hell,' says Menken, who is in two minds about the whole idea of updating the classics, although he is sympathetic towards Zegler. 'She's just a kid. Yes, she said 'Free Palestine'. It's the kind of thing any of us might have said. We all want people to be free. Although, of course, there are also the nuances of history. 'But when it comes to the dwarfs…' He pauses, takes a breath. 'I'm sorry, but the dwarfs are what Snow White is all about!' There's been a bit of 'that stuff' with Hercules, he admits. The story, in which Hercules, a demigod raised among mortals, learns to embrace his destiny, has been updated for the stage show and, says Menken, now allows for its hero – depicted in the cartoon as a buff, blue-eyed redhead and played on stage by the dark-haired, Surrey-born actor Luke Brady – to be portrayed as 'a racial outsider'. Menken applauds the 'richness' this brings to the character, but laments the toning down of the cartoon's randy satyr, Philoctetes, who, he says with a hint of regret, will not be seen on stage 'running around lusting over nymphs'. 'At the time, you play with certain clichés because it's fun,' he says. 'But each new adaptation has to be sensitive to the passing of time and the way people will look at certain issues.' Menken is a hyperactive speaker; he talks in stops and starts, and is as physically expressive as any one of the animated characters to whom he has given such glorious musical voice over the years. He and his writing partner Howard Ashman are widely credited with reviving Disney's fortunes during the late 1980s after a prolonged period of creative and commercial decline for the studio in the decades that had followed the death of Walt Disney in 1966. The duo, who had already had a theatrical hit in 1982 with Little Shop of Horrors, struck gold three times in quick succession with The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992), the lyrics for the last completed by Tim Rice following Ashman's death from Aids in 1991. Menken, who proudly calls himself 'the keeper of the flame', would go on to score Newsies, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Enchanted and Tangled. For him, the essence of Disney can be traced back to those classics of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that have enriched the childhoods of multiple generations, and to the spirit of which his own scores nod. 'Fantasia, Dumbo, the later Winnie the Pooh: they all had a depth and a beauty, a proper form, a moral,' he says. 'When the Aids crisis hit, or when 9/11 happened, I couldn't watch the news, I couldn't watch my favourite action adventure movies, it was just too fraught a time. But I would watch Disney. For me, those films were the only safe space in the world. I grew up on those films, but, by the 1980s, it had all gone. So Howard and I came along and rebooted it.' Now, the company to which he has dedicated his career once again finds itself at a turning point, caught between trying to appease the more progressive yet censorious Left and the diehard traditionalist Right. Although Menken is in favour of a live-action remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (initially announced in 2019), he accepts that, given the story's more 'problematic' aspects, it is unlikely to go ahead. 'People will go, 'Let's leave out the fact that Frollo [Quasimodo's clergyman nemesis] is obsessed with the gipsy Esmeralda.' They'll say, 'We can't have Quasimodo as a hunchback.' Well, f--- that. I'd love to make a Hunchback movie [that follows] what Victor Hugo wrote. But it can't be done.' However, he says, swerving onto a more diplomatic course, 'I don't think Disney is having an identity crisis. Obviously, Disney has been very open for gay people and diversity and woke. And then woke became a dirty word. Sometimes, when you press against limits, things push back. But I know Bob,' he says, referring to the Disney CEO, Bob Iger. 'I think he's pretty savvy about the business model.' Menken grew up in a Jewish household in New York City during the dawn of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s and, throughout his early years, set his heart on becoming a pop star. 'I didn't want to go to school, ever,' he says. 'I was very ADHD. My parents were appalled.' When he told them he wanted to be a songwriter, in the mould of his hero Bob Dylan, they insisted that he practise the piano every single day. 'They imprinted on me the need to dig in and work. They would say, 'You want to be a shoe salesman instead?' I find it very depressing to buy shoes now.' After graduating from college in 1972, he attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop – a well-respected incubator for future Broadway talent – partly to placate his parents, who were musical-theatre fanatics. That same year, he met and fell in love with Janis Roswick, a ballet dancer; half a century later, they remain married and have two daughters. Suddenly, the itinerant lifestyle of a touring pop star no longer looked quite so appealing, so Menken dedicated himself instead to composition. It's often said of his Disney music that it lacks an identifying style of his own, unlike, say, the higher-brow Stephen Sondheim, whose musical imprimatur is instantly recognisable. 'You can only pull on the stuff that's in your gut,' Menken says. 'And when it comes to audiences, the great thing about Disney is that it's a leveller.' All the same, he is keen to point out that his scores do have musical and emotional specificity, be it the 'apocalyptic' Phil Spector girl-group sound behind Little Shop of Horrors or the ragtime influence on Newsies. 'I'm not trying to be egotistical, but that was very much my and Howard's approach: we established throughout our scores a specificity of place,' he says. By comparison, 'a lot of the new Disney scores are generic…'. He stops, as if reconsidering what he is about to say. 'I think they have moved into a different place, where a Lin-Manuel score is very much Lin-Manuel,' he continues, referring to Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, who wrote the Oscar-nominated score for Disney's 2021 film Encanto. 'That's not what Howard and I did, but, hey, things evolve.' At 75, Menken still has multiple projects on the go – including both a live-action remake and a stage adaptation of Tangled, the 2010 Disney animation loosely based on the story of Rapunzel – and can't imagine himself retiring any time soon. 'Well, I can if I think what I'm producing isn't good enough,' he says, 'but I haven't reached that point yet.'
