When Palo Alto Players Artistic Director Patrick Klein learned that a stage version of Dan Brown's 2003 bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code was out in the world, he had to know more. Trekking out to Houston's Alley Theatre last fall for their production provided clarity, leading to his own company's regional Bay Area premiere. How can this dense novel become something to see on stage?
When taxi drivers in London started shouting punchlines at him that's when Jonathan Watson knew that Two Doors Down, the BBC Scotland sitcom set in a Glasgow suburb, had gone from slow-burn to blazing. The yelling is appropriate in itself, since Watson's character, Colin, is congenitally unfiltered. Whether it's telling his neighbours they needn't worry about a spate of burglaries because nobody'll target your place
West End Girl would certainly lend itself to a dramatisation: the album is a sustained piece of storytelling that depicts a marriage and its unravelling. Allen has said it is inspired by what went on in her marriage to US actor David Harbour, known for his roles in Stranger Things and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are things that are on the record that I experienced within my marriage, but that's not to say that it's all gospel, she told Vogue.
Paddington the Musical, which features new songs by McFly's Tom Fletcher, follows the beloved bear as he arrives in London and is taken in by the Brown family. The Guardian's five-star review said the show is "imaginatively staged, immaculately performed and utterly winning", while the Telegraph described it as a "funny, feel-good, family-friendly musical that looks set to run and run".
Yasmin Rufo and Eleanor Shearwood Johan Persson In a corner of London's Canary Wharf, better known for finance than fireballs, The Hunger Games: On Stage has bought Panem to life in a purpose-built 1,200 seat arena. The show is an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' bestselling dystopian novels, made into a film franchise starring Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, in which teenagers are selected to fight to the death in a televised spectacle.