With a cast that includes Imogen Stubbs and Michael Brandon, the intimacy of the King's Head should be well suited to the intensity of Paul Minx's play.
It's a shame Gugu Mbatha-Raw couldn't transfer with Jessica Swale's show from its spectacular run at the Globe but it will be interesting to see how Gemma Arterton adapts to the title role.
I loved this in Bath and was glad news of a transfer soon followed, even if new movie-based musicals can get treated harshly in the West End. This should run and tun though.
"The most performed play by a female playwright" but the first revival in London for 25 years from the creative team behind
Land of Our Fathers (which will be touring).
13 Talawa's King Lear, Royal Exchange/Birmingham Rep
Marking Talawa Theatre's 30th anniversary year, Don Warrington takes on this most mountainous of Shakespearean roles for director Michael Buffong.
It'll be four years since
I saw this at the same theatre and I can't wait to get to revisit its lovable anarchic spirit.
Stratford-upon-Avon isn't always the first place you look for innovative casting but Simon Godwin's choice to have Paapa Essiedu as the Prince of Denmark along with Tanya Moodie and Cyril Nri in the cast should make this a production to look out for.
Getting Lesley Manville and Jeremy Irons onstage is one hell of a way to celebrate your 250th birthday and guaranteed to get me there.
Headlong always offer up interesting work and so it'll be intriguing to see what Jeremy Herrin makes of Frank McGuinness' 1985 play.
18 Toneelgroep Amsterdam's Kings of War, Barbican
Ironically, there were more British journalists and critics at
the performance I saw in Amsterdam than you'd see at any fringe venue, all of us too impatient to wait a year to see this iconic company at work.
19 Yerma, Young Vic
With two productions late last year (
The Wild Duck and
Medea), Simon Stone's directorial innovation saw him shoot up my list of must-see people. Now he takes on Lorca.
20 The Flick, National Theatre
Details are still frustrating thin on the ground for this highly acclaimed play but keep your ears to the ground as tickets are likely to fly off the shelves.
Honourable mentions
Glenn Close in
Sunset Boulevard
Tim Minchin's musical of Groundhog Day at the Old Vic
Helen George in the newly announced After Miss Julie
Nick Payne's latest for the Donmar, Elegy
and Ivo van Hove directing The Crucible in New York City....