The news today that the Donmar Warehouse’s current hit production of Schiller’s Mary Stuart, directed by Phyllida Lloyd and featuring Janet McTeer in the title role and Harriet Walter as her English adversary Queen Elizabeth, will transfer to Shaftesbury Avenue’s Apollo Theatre from October 7 means that the 19th-century romanticist German playwright will have had two plays side-by-side there in less than six months: the year began with the transfer to the Gielgud next door of Don Carlos from Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
While the West End is often accused of dumbing down, it’s interesting that some producers are wising up to the fact that there is a West End audience for serious drama, like the Almeida’s transfer of Festen that played at the Lyric to three cast changes; but perhaps, too, it needs to be tried out at places like the Donmar, Almeida or Sheffield first, where it can begin to build a momentum with the kind of rave reviews that ensure it becomes an event.
