Lyric Hammersmith Theatre announces 2024/2025 season!

Posted on Feb 15, 2024 | By Sian McBride

The Lyric Hammersmith Theatre has today unveiled its 2024 and 2025 season plans! Audiences can travel from the Australian shores of 1788 to the smoky jazz bars of 1940s New York, via a magic carpet ride over Agrabah, with major re-lensed classics and a genie-us panto featuring in their highly anticipated season.

As a major London producing theatre, the Lyric’s 2024/2025 programme is exciting national co-productions with some of the UK’s most prominent theatre companies, including Headlong, Talawa Theatre Company and Wiltshire Creative. The season will kick off with the Olivier Award-winning play Our Country’s Good, written by Timberlake Wertenbaker and directed by Artistic Director Rachel O’Riordan which will play from the 5th September to 5th October 2024.

“Spewed from our country, forgotten, bound to the dark edge of the earth…” Timberlake Wertenbaker’s seminal work explores the extraordinary true story of Australia’s first penal colony. Almost four decades since the production first premiered, the themes of deportation and punishment are, frighteningly, as relevant as ever. Wertenbaker commented on the revival of her most prominent works, saying ‘Since the play first appeared, some things seem to be repeating themselves like the threat to the theatre and the cruelty of prisons, but some perceptions have changed as we have become more aware of certain aspects of our history. We hope to reflect some of that.’ Rachel O’Riordan agreed, saying ‘Written in 1988, it feels terrifyingly relevant now. I couldn’t be more excited that Timberlake is revisiting the script and that audiences will experience this modern classic afresh.’

Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking civil rights drama, A Raisin in the Sun, is re-lensed by Artistic Associate Tinuke Craig in a co-production with Headlong, Leeds Playhouse and Nottingham Playhouse, and will play at the Lyric from 08 October - 02 November 2024.

Hansberry made history with her pioneering play, becoming the first Black female playwright to have her work performed on Broadway. The six-time Tony nominated piece was hailed as ‘A play that changed American theatre forever’ by The New York Times and follows the Younger family as a sizeable inheritance from their father’s insurance policy threatens to destroy the grief-stricken family further. Directed by Tinuke Craig (The Color Purple), this classic play remains relevant and powerful in a world still divided by inequality.

Soaring into November now, and following the GIANT success of Jack and the Beanstalk back in 2022, award-winning writer Sonia Jalaly and director Nicholai La Barrie will join forces once again to bring a brand new, genie-us take on the magical fairy tale, Aladdin. The shining, shimmering, splendour will continue the Lyric’s long history of bringing some of the finest and most entertaining pantomimes to London.

Completing the season will be Play On! a stylish retelling of Shakespeare’s classic comedy, Twelfth Night. Directed by Talawa Theatre Company Artistic Director Michael Buffong and featuring Duke Ellington’s timeless music, the large-scale production set in New York’s Cotton Club will celebrate its London premiere from 28 January – 22 February 2025.

Journey to 1940s Harlem with talented songwriter Vy, who’s determined to make it in a man’s world. But will she make it out on top? With a score from a 14-time Grammy award winner and featuring breathtaking choreography, this jazz adaptation of mistaken identities will have you on the edge of your seat.