Season Guide 24/25

Welcome to The Lyceum’s 2024/25 season which draws together the warp and weft of the classical and contemporary; of Scottish and international talent; of adversity and triumph.

This seasons’ stories offer us hope and challenge: a heroic, tragic, hilarious questioning of what society is and how we live within it. They are stories to alert us to the opportunity to change the world and help us on our way.

This season, we are proud to collaborate with esteemed theatre companies from Scotland, England, and internationally, enriching our repertoire and showcasing the finest theatre to audiences in Edinburgh while also spotlighting the brilliance of Scottish theatre on the global stage.

2024 also marks a significant milestone as the Lyceum Youth Theatre celebrates its 25th Anniversary, a testament to our enduring commitment to nurturing young talent and fostering creativity within our community.

I look forward to welcoming you to The Lyceum, to share in the magic of live theatre with us soon.

David Greig

Artistic Director

(For

Photo credit: Stuart Armitt

Shirley Valentine

12–29 June 2024

The Royal Lyceum Theatre presents the Pitlochry Festival Theatre production of Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell

Directed by Elizabeth Newman Performed by Sally Reid

Tickets from £16

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction

Meet Shirley: a bored, middle-aged wife and mother who wonders what happened to her youth. Her children are all grown up, she’s lonely, disenchanted and in a rut. Shirley dreams of a better life, free from domestic drudgery and an unappreciative husband.

When her best friend suggests a trip to Greece, Shirley packs her bags, leaves a note, and heads off for a fortnight of rest and relaxation.

In Greece, she realises that there’s more to life than the mundane existence she’s been living back home. Now, Shirley has a big decision to make.

Sally Reid received an Outstanding Performance award for her role in Shirley Valentine from the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland.

‘Devastatingly good.’

The

Guardian

‘Glorious.’

The

Scotsman

Photo credit: Fraser Band

The Baddies

4–20 October 2024

World Premiere

A Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Freckle Productions co-production

Tickets from £11

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction

‘They’re funny... they’re silly... and they’re really, really bad.’

Meet the very worst Baddies in the world! Don’t you dare to come too close to a witch, a troll and an ancient ghost!

The Baddies love being bad. They roar, spook and cast wicked spells to try and scare a girl out of her wits…who will succeed? Or perhaps the girl is braver than they think…

With songs by Joe Stilgoe (Zog and Zog and The Flying Doctors), The Baddies is a wickedly hilarious adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s smash-hit story. A laugh-out-loud riot for all the family.

Based on the book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Image credit: Axel Scheffler

A Streetcar Named Desire

24 October–9 November 2024

The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh presents the Pitlochry Festival Theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Elizabeth Newman

Tickets from £18

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction

After losing her family home and prosperous life, former southern belle Blanche Dubois moves into the shabby apartment of her younger sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski in a poor neighbourhood in New Orleans.

Blanche and Stanley take an immediate dislike to one another. The conflict between them heats up as Blanche attempts to convince her sister to leave her abusive husband. Tensions mount with tragic consequences for Blanche.

‘One of the essential plays of the year.’

The Courier

‘Delivers beyond all expectations.’

The Stage

Photo credit: Fraser Band

Become a Season Ticket Holder

Our most flexible Season Ticket ever

Choose tickets to at least 5 of our 24/25 Season Shows and receive 20% off your tickets and a Membership card which includes:

• 10% off drinks at the bar

• 50p off ice creams

• Priority access to new shows and next season

• Free ticket exchange up to 24hrs before (subject to availability)

Shirley Valentine – 19-29 June 2024

The Baddies – 4-20 October 2024

A Streetcar Named Desire – 24 Oct-9 November 2024

Treasure Island – 28 November-4 January 2025

The Merchant of Venice – 18 January-15 Febuary 2025

Wild Rose – 6 March-5 April 2025

The Mountaintop – 31 May-21 June 2025

Coraline – A Musical – 26 June-19 July 2025

One Night Only

Nish Kumar: Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe

Saturday 14 September Sandi Toksvig: Friends of Dorothy Tuesday 15 October Jack Dee: Small World Sunday 11 May

Plus more to be announced – sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media to be the first to hear

Photo credit: Matt Stronge Steve Ullathorne Aemen Sukkar at Jiksaw

Treasure Island

28 November 2024

–4 January 2025

Tickets from £18

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction

See our website for more information on school performances or contact box office

It’s Christmas Eve and young Jim Hawkins works at North Edinburgh’s finest accommodation for reformed pirates and past-it privateers. Talk of cutlasses, ships and gold can be dangerous in such company. It’s not long before the story of their greatest voyage takes over… Jim, Ben Gunn and Lean Jean Silver are soon reliving their time hunting for treasure on the Hispaniola. Ahoy!

“We shouldn’t be cooped up at the bottom of a lighthouse in Granton Harbour. We should be sailing the seven seas, finding hidden treasure, singing sea shanties and pirate songs!”

Sea shanties, adventures and heartfelt fun enliven Jim’s adventure as Billy Bones’ treasure map leads him north to the isles of Orkney in search of Captain Flint’s hidden fortune.

Encountering plenty of puffins and buckets of swashbuckling, Jim tries to beat the pirates to the gold and get back home to Edinburgh safe and sound. Remember, X marks the spot… or does it?

Adventure awaits! But best keep on the lookout for the Jolly Roger!

A Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh production

By Duncan McLean adapted from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson Directed by Wils Wilson

Image credit: Steph Pyne

The Merchant of Venice

18 January– 15 February 2025

The Royal Lyceum Theatre presents the Theatre for a New Audience Production of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Featuring John Douglas Thompson as Shylock (pictured) Directed by Arin Arbus

Tickets from £18

Shakespeare’s perennially contested play about corrosive bigotry and blinding vengeance is poised at the radioactive intersection of race, class and religion in Arin Arbus’s production.

As Arbus observes, “The Merchant of Venice depicts a divided society saturated with hate and inequity. The world boils with anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, classism, and homophobia.”

The show’s uniquely diverse company evoke a deeply stratified Venice. Its connections to our own grievously fractured world are vivid, stark and startling.

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction THE SHAKESPEARE

‘A thrilling Shylock.’

The New Yorker

“In Arin Arbus’s provocative production… John Douglas Thompson as Shylock, [is] perhaps the greatest Shakespeare interpreter in contemporary America.”

The New York Times

EXCHANGE

The Shakespeare Exchange

The Shakespeare Exchange is the exchange of two productions between Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, and Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), New York. In the spring of 2024, the Lyceum’s Macbeth (an undoing) , written and directed by Zinnie Harris, after William Shakespeare, played at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, TFANA’s home. In winter 2025, TFANA’s The Merchant of Venice will play at The Lyceum. Buy 5 save 20% Season Ticket (p10)

John Douglas Thompson as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, directed by Arin Arbus. Photo by Henry Grossman.

Wild Rose

6 March– 5 April 2025

Tickets from £25

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction

World premiere A new musical

There is only one thing in Rose-Lynn’s life that has ever made sense: country music.

Fresh out of jail and bursting with incredible raw talent, charisma and cheek, the free-spirited Rose-Lynn dreams of escaping Glasgow to make it as a singer in Nashville.

But her mother Marion has had a bellyful, insisting that she settle down, ditch the fantasy, and focus on raising her two young kids.

Rose-Lynn reluctantly agrees to take a cleaning job and finds an unlikely champion in her new boss, bringing her dream closer than ever. Will risking everything really pave the road to Nashville?

From Nicole Taylor, BAFTA-winning writer of the original film and global sensation One Day, and renowned director John Tiffany (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Once) Wild Rose is an uplifting and heartwarming new musical about motherhood, dreams and finding your three chords and the truth.

Featuring songs from country music legends Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Wynonna Judd, Chris Stapleton, Caitlyn Smith, The Chicks, and Patty Griffin, alongside the film’s award-winning original song Glasgow (No Place Like Home).

Based on the film written by Nicole Taylor, directed by Tom Harper and produced by Fable Pictures

The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Caledonia Productions and Gavin Kalin Productions present Wild Rose, A New Musical

Book by Nicole Taylor Directed by John Tiffany

Photo credit: Louise Richardson

The Mountaintop

31 May– 21 June 2025

“I’m a sinner, not a saint.”

April 3, 1968. Room 306, the Lorraine Motel, Memphis. It’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr’s last night on Earth.

Exhausted from a life on the road, hoarse from testifying day after day, all King wants is a coffee and some cigarettes.

Room service arrives in the form of Camae, a motel maid with the face of an angel who smokes, drinks, and curses like a sailor while giving King a run for his money.

This funny, compelling drama imagines the man behind the legend on the eve of his assassination; and sees the public façade and the private turmoil, the family man and the martyr, desperate to finish what he started.

Set during the height of America’s Civil Rights Movement, Katori Hall’s Olivier award-winning play confronts life, death and the idea of legacy.

A Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh production of The Mountaintop by Katori Hall

Directed by Rikki Henry

Image credit: Steph Pyne

Coraline – A Musical

26 June –19 July 2025

A Leeds Playhouse, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, HOME Manchester and Birmingham Rep co-production

Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman

Book by Zinnie Harris, Music & Lyrics by Louis Barabbas Directed by James Brining

Tickets from £18

*plus £1.50 booking fee per transaction

“What does your shadow do, when the lights go out and you are in the dark all on your own?”

There is something not quite right about the house Coraline and her parents have moved into. The roof leaks, the wallpaper is peeling off the walls, the new neighbours are a little eccentric and her parents are so busy they hardly notice her at all.

As Coraline explores her new home, she discovers a mysterious door, an entrance to a parallel world where all seems perfect. But not everything is as it seems – and everyone has buttons for eyes!

Join us for a spine-tingling new musical based on the popular novel by Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Good Omens, Doctor Who) that reunites director James Brining and Set & Costume Designer Colin Richmond following the five-star success of Oliver!

Image credit: Feast with photography by David Lindsay

Take Part

The Lyceum is a civic theatre with an ambition to inspire. We have classes and workshops for all ages and walks of life, as well as backstage tours, schools workshops and free post-show discussions.

Join Us

Play your part and help secure our season

“My goodness, I just want to say a huge heartfelt thank you – I had the best two hours!”

60+ participant

“LYT always gave me the confidence to be myself on stage and perform what I enjoy.”

Lyceum Youth Theatre participant

To find out more, or to join our youth theatre, or 60+ classes, visit lyceum.org.uk/take-part

By donating today your gift makes it possible for us to create transformative work, both on and off stage. Your kindness will be at the heart of what we do, aiding our world-class productions, artistic development and educational programmes.

The joy of giving is a feeling reflected by one of our current Patrons:

“We like plays that make us laugh and we love plays that make us think. We need the Arts, we need the Lyceum, and they need us – the small contribution we make as Patrons is repaid many times over.”

By playing your part this season, you will help to ensure the future of the Lyceum Theatre – please join us as a donor or Patron this season.

Discover more: lyceum.org.uk/support-us | development@lyceum.org.uk | 0131 248 4831

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

Seating Plan Your Visit

Preview Performances

Preview tickets go on sale one month in advance and are limited to four per booking.

Post-Show Discussions

Join us in the stalls post-show to meet each production’s cast and creative team and delve deeper into the stories on stage. FREE! No ticket required.

Accessibility

There’s street-level access to The Lyceum, lifts to all levels and dedicated wheelchair spaces in the auditorium. We keep a wheelchair and cushions for visitors’ use and several seats have opening armrests allowing wheelchair users to transfer to seats. We welcome all assistance dogs into the auditorium. When you book your tickets, please let the Box Office know of any access requirements and we will do our best to assist you. For more info, please visit: lyceum.org.uk/access

Artlink Access Scottish Theatre

Artlink offers an escort service to help people with disabilities to enjoy the arts. Contact them directly on 0131 229 3555 or at artlinkedinburgh.co.uk

For a full list of access performances at theatres in Scotland visit accessscottishtheatre.com

Gift the joyof theatre

Gift vouchers are the perfect way to share your love of theatre.

From classic Shakespeare, to iconic twentieth century drama, to modern family favourites, there’s something for everyone to enjoy at The Lyceum next season.

So, why not give a loved one the chance to experience it for themselves?

Visit lyceum.org.uk/gift or call our Box Office on 0131 248 4848 to purchase a gift voucher today.

Photo credit: Peter Dibdin