The world premiere of *My Neighbour Totoro* triumphed at the 2023 Olivier Awards, winning six categories out of its nine nominations at the ceremony. It’s a good time for the Studio Ghibli stage adaptation, too, as *My Neighbour Totoro* will open in the West End next year, with performances at the [Gillian Lynne Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/gillian-lynne-theatre) from 8 March.

Based on Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 Studio Ghibli film, *My Neighbour Totoro* follows Satsuki and Mei,...

Here's why 'My Neighbour Totoro' deserved all the Oliviers

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Based on Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 Studio Ghibli film, *My Neighbour Totoro* will return to London later next year, opening at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

Next year, the [Royal Shakespeare Company’s](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/stars-on-stage/royal-shakespeare-company) triumphant 2022 stage adaptation of [*My Neighbour Totoro*](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/25389-my-neighbour-totoro) heads to the West End's [Gillian Lynne Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/gillian-lynne-theatre) for a third run due to enormous popular demand. The show won six Olivier Awards and broke the Barbican’s box office record for the most tickets...

What to expect from London shows based on Studio Ghibli films

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Studio Ghibli is a renowned Japanese animation film studio founded in 1985. They are known for creating imaginative movies, including *My Neighbour Totoro* and *Spirited Away*.

A stage adaptation of television comedy *Inside No 9* will arrive in the West End next year. The show opens for a 12-week run at Wyndham's Theatre from 18 January 2025.

The TV show's original writers and performers Steve Pemberton (*The Pillowman*) and Reece Shearsmith (*A Very Expensive Poison*) will star in the West End show, titled *Stage/Fright*, which will blend original material with familiar characters from the series. 

Speaking about the announcement, Pemberton and Shearsmith said:...

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's 'Inside No 9' to be adapted for the West End 

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The TV show's original creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith will star in the West End adaptation when it opens next year. 

The hit musical comedy *Titanique* has confirmed plans for a West End run later this year. The show is currently performing at Off-Broadway venue the Daryl Roth Theatre.

The musical, which is co-written by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle, and Constantine Rousouli, has received critical acclaim and multiple awards since its premiere off Broadway at Asylum Theater in 2022.

The parody of James Cameron's Oscar-winning *Titanic* film features a raft of Celine Dion’s iconic songs including “My Heart Will...

'Titanique' confirms planned West End run

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The musical has received critical acclaim and multiple awards since its premiere off Broadway at Asylum Theater in 2022. It is currently at the Daryl Roth Theatre.

The British writer James Graham is on an incredible run at the moment. He just won the Olivier Award for Best New Play for *Dear England*, a fantastic drama about football manager Gareth Southgate, which enticed new audiences into theatre, and the musical *Tammy Faye*, for which he supplied the book, is opening on Broadway this autumn.

He’s also a prolific screenwriter, with recent hits including the crime series *Sherwood* and the dystopian drama *The Way*. Graham has that rare combination of...

Learn more about James Graham’s career ahead of 'Boys from the Blackstuff'

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From plays *Dear England* and *This House* to TV hits like *Sherwood*, Graham is unstoppable – and now his *Boys from the Blackstuff* is coming to the West End.

The bright lights of West End theatres are always appealing, but there are also a number of exciting Off-West End venues in the capital, such as the small but mighty [Bush Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/bush-theatre), which is nestled in west London.

This theatre has always punched above its weight, launching the careers of hugely successful writers such as James Graham and Lucy Kirkwood, as well as actors like Victoria Wood, Alan Rickman, Andrew Scott, and Phoebe...

A complete guide to the Bush Theatre

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Get to know this exciting new-writing venue in west London, which has launched the careers of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Victoria Wood, among others.

The acclaimed screen and stage actor Ben Whishaw is back in town, starring in the premiere of Margaret Perry’s *[Bluets](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/39930-bluets)* at the Royal Court. The play is an adaptation of Maggie Nelson’s book and follows someone obsessed with the colour blue – taking in artists like Joni Mitchell and Billie Holiday as they navigate a devastating heartbreak.

Whishaw is joined in *Bluets* by *House of the Dragon* star Emma D’Arcy and *The Girl Before*’s Kayla...

Learn more about Ben Whishaw's career ahead of 'Bluets' at the Royal Court

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The James Bond and *Paddington* actor is co-starring in this new adaptation of Maggie Nelson's book *Bluets* with Emma D'Arcy and Kayla Meikle.

It’s another fantastic year for [Shakespeare plays](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/whats-on/shakespeare) in London, and as the weather (finally!) improves, you can start getting those outdoor shows in the diary, as well as all of the brilliant productions in the West End and beyond.

If you’re after a fresh take on the Bard, you’re definitely in luck. Sir Ian McKellen is already wowing audiences, giving his Falstaff a dynamic new spin in Robert Icke's adaptation of *Henry IV*, *[Player...

See modern adaptations and outdoor productions of Shakespeare plays in London

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From Ian McKellen in *Player Kings* to an incredible open-air season at Shakespeare's Globe, there's a wide variety of shows on offer in London.

You just can’t beat family when it comes to riveting drama. Perhaps that’s because no one gets under your skin quite like the people you love and who know you best – and who are bonded to you by blood, like it or not. From Greek tragedy through Shakespearean slanging matches and contemporary clans, shows with family drama at their centre have always ruled our stages.

That’s certainly true of London theatre this year, which features a range of bickering families – from plays like *[Long Day's...

Watch West End family dramas on the London stage

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Enter the homes of these loving but fraught families in West End plays such as *Long Day's Journey Into Night* and musicals like *Back to the Future*.

Get ready for what promises to be the most talked-about play of the year. Hollywood star John Lithgow will play Roald Dahl in a new drama, *[Giant](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/39984-giant)*, which sees the famous author about to release his children’s book *The Witches*, but then rocked by a scandal surrounding anti-Semitic comments he made in an article.

Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play, directed by Nicholas Hytner (artistic director of the Bridge Theatre), also stars Elliot Levey...

Learn more about John Lithgow's career ahead of him playing Roald Dahl in 'Giant'

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The Tony and Emmy-winning Hollywood actor is starring in Mark Rosenblatt’s provocative new play *Giant* at the Royal Court in London this autumn.

The 1999 play, [*Further than the Furthest Thing*](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/27149-further-than-the-furthest-thing), will return to London for the first time in over 20 years. *Further than the Furthest Thing* will be revived at the [Young Vic](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/young-vic), with previews from 9 March, an official opening on 16 March, and performances to 29 April. 

Based on real events on the island of Tristan da Cunha and in Southampton, England, *Further than the Furthest Thing* sees a small, typically undisturbed community have their life changed forever when an outsider visits the island. Zinnie Harris was inspired to write the play in honour of her mother's memories, as her mother lived on Tristan.

The cast includes [Jenna Russell](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/stars-on-stage/jenna-russell), Gerald Kyd, Archie Madekwe, Cyril Nri, Kirsty Rider, and Shapla Salique.

Jennifer Tang directs *Further than the Furthest Thing*, with design by Soutra Gilmour, lighting design by Prema Mehta, sound design by George Dennis, composition by Ruth Chan, and movement by Ingrid Mackinnon. 

*Further than the Furthest Thing* is at the Young Vic. 

Book *Further than the Furthest Thing* tickets on London Theatre.

[![LT - CTA - 250](//images.ctfassets.net/6pezt69ih962/1t6HRGmhlYl70k6PmR0mOZ/3caac861bc1d4233cd7844652c925623/LT-CTA-250.png)](https://ticket.londontheatre.co.uk/booking/calendar?product_id=27149&content_product_id=27149&venue_id=173)

*Photo credit: Further than the Furthest Thing (Photo courtesy of production)*

Zinnie Harris's ‘Further than the Furthest Thing’ to open at the Young Vic

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Genre: Play

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When the modern world rocks a small island, can the inhabitants rally together? Book a one-way trip to Tristan da Cunha, via the Young Vic. 

Zinnie Harris’s *Further than the Furthest Thing* play follows an island community who face up to their past. They’ve lived peacefully for centuries, avoiding modern developments and a way of life that could corrupt their existence. But in 1961, a native outsider disrupts all ties to the land. What could happen when the “H’outside world” take over? 

In a play all about home and community, *Further than the Furthest Thing* shows what it means to support one another. In a [four-star review on London Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/further-than-the-furthest-thing-review-young-vic), "[the play] exists within the context of larger, impersonal forces — colonial misrule, for one thing — that flavours a play that may seem elusive at first but coalesces in the mind after the fact."

Harris was inspired to pen *Further than the Furthest Thing* to keep her mother's memories alive — she lived on Tristan da Cunha. 

The play premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1999, followed by London performances at the National Theatre in 2001. Over two decades later, Jennifer Tang directs the play at the Young Vic, starring Jenna Russell.

## Where is Tristan da Cunha?

Tristan da Cunha is a small island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It’s located approximately 2,000 miles off the coast of South Africa and is part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha. The isolated island boasts a 300-strong population.

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On a remote volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic, a community lives undisturbed. When an outsider visits the island, their way of life changes forever. Explore Tristan da Cunha via the Young Vic. Learn more about *Further than the Furthest Thing* tickets on London Theatre.

Outsiders weren't the only worry for the community. On 8 Oct. 1961, a large earthquake and landslide saw all 264 islanders and 31 expats sent to Southampton for their safety. As the play develops, you’ll see how lifechanging decisions rock their collective world. 

The isolated island boasts a 300-strong population. It doesn’t show signs of increasing: you can only move there if you have a family connection to the island. For now, you can only visit Tristan da Cunha by seeing *Further than the Furthest Thing* in London.

## What to Watch For: 

- Jenna Russell plays Mill Laverello. The Olivier-winning actress previously starred in the UK premiere of *Fun Home* at the Young Vic.
- Tristan da Cunha is a small island in the South Atlantic Ocean. The only way to visit the island is a six-day trip from South Africa.
-  Did you know they also speak their own dialect. It’s close to British English, but they stress certain sounds differently, notably “H’Outside” instead of “Outside.”


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Buy tickets for Further than the Furthest Thing at the Young Vic in London. Find official theatre tickets to Plays with Box Office.

Further than the Furthest Thing Tickets | Box Office

Plays rarely get as out there — literally so — as [*Further than the Furthest Thing*](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/27149-further-than-the-furthest-thing), the Zinnie Harris theatrical fantasia of sorts which opened in 2000 at the National and was seen off-Broadway, in a separate production, in 2002. Now considered a contemporary classic of sorts, not least for its compelling strangeness, Jennifer Tang revives the play into a prime case of elliptical beauty. 

Tang and a gifted design team, headed by the seemingly ubiquitous Soutra Gilmour here in minimalist mode, stage events in the round, with audiences encircling the action, and actors who sit between scenes in the aisles, directly next to playgoers. 

A deeply moving [Jenna Russell](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/stars-on-stage/jenna-russell), taking a break from her storied musicals career, has the focal role of the islander Mill. We first encounter this sweet-voiced Scotswoman and her husband Bill (Cyril Nri) out in the remote climes of the South Atlantic archipelago of Tristan da Cunha, though the location is never specified in the script. 

The pair have a nephew, Francis (Archie Madekwe), who returns home from travels abroad after he was reviled for his unusual speech. (The islanders speak a distinctive, ungrammatical patois distinguished, amongst other things, by adding the letter H when saying things like “H’outside”.) Francis has a girlfriend, Rebecca (an impassioned Kirsty Rider), who is pregnant by someone else and who would quite like not to have the baby girl whose birth is evocatively depicted at the close of the first act. 

It’s 1961, and a volcanic eruption displaces this remote populace to the comparative bustle of Southampton, where we find ourselves after the interval — an incident that actually happened to this one-time British dependency. What transpires is an empathically imagined investigation into what we mean by “home”, folded into an often-grim parable of acculturation. 

The Anglo-Bangladeshi vocalist Shapla Salique adds to the play’s aural allure. 
Mill finds herself puzzling out “puddings” as if the very meaning of that British mainstay were somehow alien to her sense of self. The self-appointed chaplain of the island from which he has been evacuated, Bill gets tested in his own way — subsumed by grief and guilt as he and his wife discover a land of umbrellas and royalty, not seaweed seeping over one’s shoes. 

The play features a conjurer-villain of sorts in Gerald Kyd’s Mr. Hansen, a South African factory owner who is revealed to be less charming than first thought. A jar manufacturer, Mr. Hansen exists to upend tradition, bringing with him the promise of money which isn’t enough for such stalwarts as Mill, who exists in mourning for a vanished, and vanishing, way of life. 

The quintet on view is gradually seen to exist within the context of larger, impersonal forces — colonial misrule, for one thing — that flavours a play that may seem elusive at first but coalesces in the mind after the fact. 

That’s especially true of a staging as alert as this one to the imaginative reach of a text that unapologetically makes demands upon its audience: quite a few spectators disappeared at the interval, though those who stayed proffered a rousing response at the bows. Gilmour’s turntable design proffers an amphitheatre given shape and depth by Prema Mehta’s lighting and George Dennis’s sound design: joint contributors to the arresting otherness of the occasion. 

Ian William Galloway’s video design ramps up the atmospherics of a play that seems to have sprung from Harris in defiance of the time-honoured dictum to write what you know: the author on this occasion has been emboldened by inspiration and invention, not direct experience. 

Her play benefits no end from a cast who seem visibly affected by the tale they are telling: Russell, in particular, looked appropriately misty-eyed following a ravishing monologue to find musicality of an altogether different kind in the verbal idiosyncrasies at work here. This performer is given brief passages of song for those wanting a reminder of the career that has brought her to this place, to which she responds with a deeply visceral connection that finds meaning in the mysterious. Stick with it, and you may well, too.

*Further than the Furthest Thing* is at the Young Vic through 29 April. Book *Further than the Furthest Thing* tickets on London Theatre.

[![Book Tickets CTA - LT/NYTG](//images.ctfassets.net/6pezt69ih962/3qAtGOdQq9x3k1WcHlaJnw/90ece91bbe47ed07e142c2e43c7a7a3f/BookTickets-250.png)](https://ticket.londontheatre.co.uk/booking/calendar?product_id=27149&content_product_id=27149&venue_id=173)

*Photo credit: Jenna Russell (centre), Gerald Kyd, Archie Madekwe and Cyril Nri in Further than the Furthest Thing at Young Vic (Photo by Marc Brenner)*

'Further than the Furthest Thing' review — a deeply visceral play finds meaning in the mysterious

Read our four-star review of Zinnie Harris's *Further than the Furthest Thing* starring Jenna Russell at the Young Vic, with performances through 29 April.

Born in London in 1967, the Olivier Award-winning actress Jenna Russell is best known for her critically-acclaimed performances in *Sunday in the Park with George*, *[Merrily We Roll Along](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/merrily-we-roll-along)* and *[Fun Home](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/fun-home)*. 

Growing up in Dundee, Russell went on to attend the Sylvia Young Theatre School, one of the country’s leading performing arts schools for school-age children. Pursuing a career in the theatre, Russell went on to appear as Young Sally in *Follies* at the [Shaftesbury Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/shaftesbury-theatre) in 1987 and *Martin Guerre* at the [Prince Edward Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/prince-edward-theatre) in 1988. She then joined the company of *[Les Miserables](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/les-miserables)* at the [Palace Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/palace-theatre), understudying the roles of Fantine and Eponine, before taking over the role of Fantine. In the 1990s, she also joined the [Royal Shakespeare Company](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/actor-profile/royal-shakespeare-company), starring in productions of *The Beggar’s Opera* and *Wildest Dreams*, both staged at the [Barbican](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/barbican). 

Her West End breakthrough came in 2005, when she received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical as Sally Brown in *Guys and Dolls*. But, Russell won her first Olivier in 2007, taking the award for best actress in a musical for her performance as Dot in *Sunday in the Park with George*. She later reprised the role of Dot on Broadway in the musical’s limited four-month engagement, with Russell receiving a Tony Award nomination.

Russell’s considered to be one of the finest West End actresses working. Her theatre CV includes *Amy's View* alongside [Felicity Kendal](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/actor-profile/felicity-kendal) and two productions of *Into the Woods*, playing Cinderella at the Donmar and the Baker’s Wife at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. She’s also given an Olivier Award-nominated performance as Mary in *Merrily We Roll Along*, originally revived at the [Menier Chocolate Factory](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/menier-chocolate-factory) and later transferring to the [Harold Pinter Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/harold-pinter-theatre). In recent years, she’s starred in *Fun Home* at the [Young Vic](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/young-vic), *The Bridges of Madison Count*y at the Menier and played Penelope Pennywise in *Urinetown*.

As well as a glittering theatrical career, Russell is no stranger to the small screen either. She’s perhaps best known for taking over the role of Michelle Fowler in BBC’s *Eastenders* from 2016 to 2018, but she’s also had a leading role in the BBC’s nineties comedy *On the Up*, a British farce written by *Good Life* writer Bob Larbey. In summer 2021, she played Edith Piaf in *Piaf* at Nottingham Playhouse.

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Born in London in 1967, the Olivier Award-winning actress Jenna Russell is best known for her critically-acclaimed performances in Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along and Fun Home.

Jenna Russell - Stars on Stage | London Theatre

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The Homecoming

Olivier-nominated Matthew Dunster (2:22 A Ghost Story) directs a bold, spare refocusing of Harold Pinter’s powerful masterpiece.

The Young Vic opened on 11 Sept. 1970, and was the first residence of the [National Theatre](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatres/national-theatre) under Laurence Olivier. The Young Vic was conceived as a theatre to stage high-quality productions at affordable prices. The theatre was rebuilt from 2004 - 2006, with the Young Vic co-producing 22 shows over 22 months with 20 international companies. Now, the Young Vic features a main house, as well as two studios: Maria and Clare. 

Zinnie Harris's ‘Further than the Furthest Thing’ to open at the Young Vic

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