Lyn Gardner's Weekly Picks
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Shakespeare’s Globe summer season begins on **Shakespeare**’s birthday, which falls this week on the 23rd and marks the start of the outdoor theatre season. Directed by the multi-talented **Emily Lim**, it’s a revival that embraces the idea that [*A Midsummer Night’s Dream*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/a-midsummer-nights-dream-london-tickets) is a climate crisis play about a world in rupture where even the seasons are turned upside down. There is plenty of evidence for the idea in the text: Think of Titania's exquisite speech about her quarrel with Oberon and how it has upset the natural order of the world and impacted the environment. It’s not the first time the play has been approached from that perspective, but **Lim** has worked wonders with other familiar texts, including *Pericles* at the NT, and made us see them through fresh eyes.
The arrival of [*Grace Pervades*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/grace-pervades-tickets) at the Theatre Royal Haymarket means that **David Hare** has two plays in the West End, one old and one new, which is not bad for someone who has been writing plays since 1970. [*Teeth ‘n’ Smiles*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/teeth-n-smiles-tickets) at the Harold Pinter, which may show its age but comes with a roaring performance from **Rebecca Lucy Taylor** (aka **Self-Esteem**), was written over 50 years ago, while the more sedate *Grace Pervades*, which premiered in Bath last year, stars **Ralph Fiennes** as Henry Irving and **Miranda Raison** as Ellen Terry, both giants of the Victorian theatre. Directed by **Jeremy Herrin**, it is a witty love letter to theatre itself and its continued reinventions.
Head further West to Riverside Studios for [*Heartsink*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/heartsink-tickets), a new play about illness, grief and death. If that doesn’t sound like a bundle of laughs, bear in mind it’s a comedy. **Aiden Gillet** is a doctor with a troublesome patient, Cara (played by *Derry Girls'* [**Kathy Kiera Clarke**](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/news/lyn-gardner-talks-heartsink-at-riverside-studios)), who makes some unexpected discoveries when he himself becomes ill. Maybe the patient has something to teach the doctor? The writer, **Farine Clarke**, used to be a GP herself and draws on that experience in a play about the impact the most unexpected people can have on your life.
Come February 2027, [*Billy Elliot*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/musical/billy-elliot-tickets) will be back in town at the Adelphi Theatre. When it was suggested to **Lee Hall**, the screenwriter of the 2000 movie by **Elton John**, no less, that it could make a great stage musical, **Hall** replied that it was “the worst idea in the world". But together they made it happen, and of course it turned out to be a very good idea indeed. The musical version is actually better in many ways than the film, not least because it ups the tension between the dying community doomed by the defeat of the 1984 miner’s strike and the aspirational Billy whose miner dad expects him to learn to box but who has his eyes set on a place at the Royal Ballet School. It’s a genuinely great musical and one which should be welcomed back to the West End with a resounding cheer.