Lyn Gardner's Weekly Picks
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**David Morrissey, Mary Louise Parker, Rosie Sheehy**, and **Tom Glynn-Carney** star in [*The Oresteia*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/oresteia-tickets) at the Bridge, a new contemporary version of the Greek tragedy written and directed by **Simon Stone**. This should be quite something because **Stone** has already delivered some of the most memorable shows of the last 15 years, including *Medea* at the Barbican and the astonishing *Yerma* at the Young Vic with **Billie Piper**. **Aeschylus’** mighty play may have been written two millennia ago, but **Stone** is likely to make it seem fresh off the page.
**Simon Stone**’s theatre is always pretty distinctive, but it looks quite tame compared with the work of Japanese theatre-maker **Hideki Noda**, whose work has included *The Bee* with **Kathryn Hunter** and *A Night at the Kabuki*, which fused *Romeo and Julie*t with **Queen**’s *A Night at the Opera*. At Sadler's Wells this week, **Noda** and his 25-strong company can be seen in [*−320°F*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/noda-map-320-fahrenheit-tickets)**,** a piece inspired by the Faust myth about a man in search of the secret of eternal life.
It is but a stone’s throw from Sadler's Wells to the Arcola, where you can catch **Bella Merlin**’s play [*Tilly No-Body*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/tilly-no-body-tickets) about **Tilly Newes**, the actress who played **Lulu** in **Frank Wedekind**’s scandalous play on stage and subsequently married him in 1904. But it was not a happy marriage, and **Wedekind** was both possessive and demeaning, reducing her to a nobody. But despite several suicide attempts, she survived the marriage and wrote her own story, an autobiography, on which **Merlin**’s show—a hit in Edinburgh last year—is based.
It’s 20 years since **Richard E. Grant** was last on stage, but he returns in what should be high style in a revival of **Noel Coward**’s [*Hay Fever*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/hay-fever-tickets) at Wyndhams in September. Opposite him making her stage debut will be American TV actress **Christine Baranski** (*The Big Bang Theory, The Good Wife* and *The Gilded Age*). The story of the outrageously unconventional Bliss family, who have each invited a weekend guest without telling the others, can be a delight but is notoriously tricky to nail. Fortunately, **Emily Burns**, who made such neat work of **Dodie Smith**’s Dear Octopus at the National in 2024, is directing this comedy of exceedingly bad manners, and odds are she will do it exceedingly well.