Wilton’s Music Hall today announces its stunning autumn season, which sees groundbreaking productions and collaborations with forward-thinking theatre companies. Continuing what has been an incredible year of theatre for Britain’s oldest Victorian music hall, this new season is set to be one of the best yet.
The riotous and enchanting POTTED PANTO (29th November – 30th December) will make its East End debut at Wilton’s Music Hall, truly encapsulating the festive season, to bring seven classic pantomimes in 80 hilarious minutes to Grace’s Alley. The spectacular Christmas madcap ride from Daniel Clarkson, Jefferson Turner, and Richard Hurst, through all the best-loved characters from the wonderful world of panto, will be a delight for all the family this Christmas.
MAYBE A GHOST STORY (30th October – 04th November) is a uniquely seasonal show, originally written and performed by comedian Daniel Kitson last year for two nights over Halloween at the Globe Theatre. It has been especially restaged for one week only, amidst the singular majesty of Wilton’s Music Hall. This show is funny, possibly frightening, and maybe, just maybe, a ghost story.
Ambition, power, and political unrest will explode appropriately onto the stage at Wilton’s in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 1936 (07th – 11th November) starring co-creator Tracy-Ann Oberman (Eastenders, Doctor Who) as Shylock. One of Shakespeare’s most enduring classics is transported to London’s East End in the 1930s in this groundbreaking new production directed and adapted by Brigid Larmour from an idea by Tracy Ann Oberman. The production comes direct from the Royal Shakespeare Company, having opened to glowing reviews at Watford’s Palace Theatre earlier this year.
Wilton’s Music Hall is delighted to be hosting the world premiere of a new play WHAT IT MEANS (04th – 28th October) by James Corley, an adaptation of Merle Miller’s pioneering essay What It Means to be a Homosexual, presented by Nisha Oza for The Lot Productions. This true account of Miller’s journey, first printed in 1971 in the New York Times, and published as On Being Different by Penguin, has become a defining part of the LGBTQ+ rights movement as it stands today. This production, directed by Harry Mackrill and starring Richard Cant, is an emotional one-person voyage through history highlighting the importance of standing up for what you believe in, accepting the validity of one’s own voice, and taking a courageous step onto the platform that is offered to you.
Keeping with the theme of LGBTQ+ rights and following critically acclaimed runs at the Edinburgh Fringe, a UK Tour, and a West End Season, the smash hit and drag extravaganza Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho returns to Wilton’s by popular demand. Created by Olivier Award winner Jon Brittain and Matt Tedford, this big gay odyssey about LGBTQ+ rights, the 80s, and disco is gloriously camp with political punch (The Times) and a rollicking good laugh (Attitude).
In the rest of a jam-packed season, Wilton’s sees the return of alternative superstars and singing siblings Bourgeois & Maurice with their life-affirming and demented 5-star show PLEASURE SEEKERS, a high-energy homage to hedonism in all its filthy, fabulous glory, and the uproarious, good old-fashioned knees up that is Carradine’s Cockney Sing-a-long (21st November), plus the world-famous Players Theatre (22nd November) who pay tribute to the music stars of yesteryear in an evening of truly magnificent song, dance, magic, and music.
There is more music, spanning opera and jazz, Purcell to Britten, Weill to Wallen when MIMO presents FEAST (15th – 16th September), silent movie nights with live piano scores provided by Lucky Dog Picturehouse (14th -16th November) and the always wonderful OneTrackMinds (13th – 14th September & 24th – 25th November) where a vibrant selection of writers, musicians, and thinkers celebrate the power of music by sharing stories about the one song that changed their life. For one night only, the exceptionally popular Dead Poets Live presents a sort of ghost story, The Haunter (23rd November), exploring the most complex poems ever written on love and bereavement by Thomas Hardy.
Joining them for younger theatergoers and all the family; Footsbarn Traveling Theatre presents an evening of good old-fashioned Christmas magic with puppetry, music, and mayhem with an adaptation of the classic fairy tale La Petite Gerda (17th – 18th November) and Morgan & West return with a MASSIVE MAGIC SHOW (25th November), a relentlessly funny, fantastical, and magic-filled show packed full of silliness and fun for kids aged 5-95. https://www.wiltons.org.uk/