Great Britain

Theatre Royal Haymarket 
26 September

She's a page one whip,

making the headlines,

going out teeth and tits

for the perfect pitch.

She knows the game,

laying down lies and sex

to break a story

and some hapless neck.

 

Great Britain is playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket 

until 10 January 2015

http://www.trh.co.uk/whatson/great-britain-at-the-theatre-royal-haymarket/ 

As You Like It

Southwark Playhouse

25 September 

Where first the snow fell

now there flutters spring,

bursting in flower and song,

falling in floods of green;

a flurry of lovers sigh

beneath the trees,

barely aware that they

are not all as they seem.

 

As You Like It runs at the Southwark Playhouse until 18 October

http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/the-large/as-you-like-it/

Once

Phoenix Theatre
6 September

There are boys like this,

silent and strong,

better in song than speech,

better in love than grief,

lugging their hearts along

with them like rocks

and wishing they were light.

Wishing for gentle words

and easy flight

to carry them away

above the sea, but scared

they'll fall onto the rocks beneath.

 

Once is playing at the Phoenix Theatre 

Currently booking until 4 July 2015

http://www.oncemusical.co.uk/

Made in Dagenham

Usually Haiku Review is just about shows I have seen, but I'm excited enough about this one to let you know about it in advance. Made in Dagenham thrilled me as a film, and I can't wait to see it onstage - as a musical - directed by Rupert Goold.

Here's a taster. Watch out for the feminist mining strike poem in due course.

Made in Dagenham opens on 5 November at the Adelphi Theatre.
www.madeindagenhamthemusical.com/
 

Wonderland

Hampstead Theatre
12 July

Down pit you're dark as death

and hot as hell, sweltering, swearing
in relentless pitch,
 

up to your waist in water,

rubble, grit, coal in your eyes

and lungs, coal in your shit.

 

You hold the picket line

against all odds, fighting for what

you know to be man’s right;

 

brought to your knees for scraps
you rage and weep, as all 

you ever worked for slips from sight.

Wonderland runs at Hampstead Theatre until 26 July
http://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2014/wonderland/
 

Shakespeare in Love

Noel Coward Theatre

10 July

Playwright of the river,

drinking with whores

and mongrels

in a backstreet tavern;

Poet of Cheapside,

pressing love

onto a page

with a sigh of ink.

For all your words

was there a girl

who would have been a boy

to tread the boards with you,

a girl whose heart you met

like twin souls on the stage,

before she was 

forever wrenched away?

Shakespeare in Love runs 
at the Noel Coward Theatre 

until 25 October 2014

http://shakespeareinlove.com/

The Kindness of Strangers

Southwark Playhouse
4 July

2 am, the roads are quiet now
but for the drunks
in yellow moons of light
on corners,
and a tawny coated fox,
light-pawed on the pavement,
padding home.
We cruise the slick black roads,
headlights on windows,
waiting. Tea, chat, radio.
Waiting in silence
for the bells, blue lights
and speeding, stretchers, doorbells
and a woman scared, a child
crying on the stairs,
clutching the dog,
afraid to look
at breath, blood, sick. We know.
Hold hands, lift him into the van
and drive him back through thin,
fine-falling rain.
Dawn on the river.
Back to the hospital. Out again.


The Kindness of Strangers by Curious Directive 
runs at the Southwark Playhouse until 16 July

http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/index.php/outandabout/the-kindness-of-strangers/