Theatre
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.
Billed as a “serious comedy”, the new What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is based on Nathan Englander’s acclaimed 2011 short story.
Directed by Patrick Marber – director of the Olivier and Tony Award-winning Leopoldstadt – and produced by Oliver King from 2023’s The White Factory, it stars West Wing and Scandal’s Joshua Malina in his London stage debut as the “secular, sarcastic, anti-religious Jew” Phil. Don’t miss the American star’s Q&A at the JC’s exclusive showing of the play on October 15. It also stars Caroline Catz, who is best known for her roles as Louisa in ITV’s Doc Martin and DI Helen Morton in DCI Banks and Dorothea Myer-Bennett, an Offie Award-winning actress whose stage credits include Nachtland at the Young Vic and Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt.
Marylebone Theatre, October 4 to November 23
Giant.
Roald Dahl’s antisemitism is the subject of the debut play by writer-director Mark Rosenblatt. The children’s author famously referred to “those powerful American Jewish bankers” and said, “even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”
Set in 1983, on the eve of the publication of Dahl’s novel The Witches, when the author is facing outcry over the antisemitic views he’s aired, Giant takes place across a single afternoon at his home when his family and Jewish publisher Tom Maschler, played by Olivier Award-winning Elliot Levey, gather to navigate the scandal. Giant also stars John Lithgow, who has featured in The Crown and comedy 3rd Rock from the Sun, Rachael Stirling and Romola Garai, and is directed by Nicholas Hytner.
It “explores with dark humour the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric” and offers “a complicated portrait of a fiendishly charismatic icon”, according to the Royal Court website’s synopsis. Rosenblatt hopes it will give audiences “an uncomfortably funny, urgent and provocative night in the theatre”.
Royal Court, September 26 to November 16
Cable Street.
It’s the last chance to catch the musical of the 1936 Battle of Cable Street which sold out its world premiere run in February/March. This October marks the 88th anniversary of thousands of anti-fascist demonstrators uniting to blockade the East End street when Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (Blackshirts) began to marc. The actual anniversary is October 4, which is Rosh Hashanah, but mindful of the High Holy Days, there are extra performances and matinees during October.
Celebrating a community of Jews, Irish workers, trade unionists, labour and communist parties, who united with a call for action, the further-developed musical from playwright Alex Kanefsky and award-winning composer/lyricist Tim Gilvin includes Gemma Salter (Made in Dagenham), Jimmy Chambers (Sherlock Holmes) and Brady Isaacs Pearce (Les Misérables on international tour), as well as original cast members. Danny Colligan, Sha Dessi and Joshua Ginsberg play the three young friends, Ron, Mairead and Sammy.
Directed by Adam Lenson.
Southwark Playhouse, to October 10
TV
Nobody Wants This.
There is much to look forward to in this new Netflix show starring Adam Brody and Kristen Bell, in which an agnostic Los Angeles podcast host and an unconventional, newly single rabbi on the rebound meet at a party – and walk out together. We watch the unlikely pair, Joanne (Bell) and Noah (Brody of The OC fame) fall in love and grapple with their differing outlooks on life, the modern obstacles to love, and their sometimes-well-meaning families – including her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) and brother Sasha (Timothy Simons).
Its creator, the actor-writer Erin Foster, was inspired by her own views and experiences of love. “I was always a very cynical writer because I was a very cynical person,” she told Tudum, the companion site to Netflix, “and that’s where all my comedy came from.” She said her semi-autobiographical show “really represents how I view love now, which is so different than how I viewed it before. Being in a really beautiful, healthy, fun relationship, it made me soften some of my cynicism.”
Netflix, September 26
Dance
Theatre of Dreams.
Tony Award-nominated Israeli choreographer, dancer and composer Hofesh Shechter’s new full-length show Theatre of Dreams promises to “delve deep into the world of fantasy and the subconscious, revealing fears, hopes, desires and a myriad of emotions that penetrates not only our dreams but also our waking thoughts”.
The dancers of Hofesh Shechter Company will bring to vibrant life on stage the interplay between poetry and reality, accompanied by a small band of musicians playing live to Shechter’s cinematic score. The choreographer reunites with lighting designer Tom Visser and costume designer Osnat Kelner to further sculpt his dreamscape.
Sadlers Wells, October 9-12
Film
Jewish Film Festival
Showcasing a wide range of feature films, documentaries and shorts which reflect the diversity of Jewish and Israeli life and culture, the 27th instalment of the festival brings contemporary Jewish cinema from around the world to UK audiences.
Don’t miss A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s new film as director and lead which stars Kieran Culkin (Succession), British actor Will Sharpe (White Lotus) and Jennifer Grey. In this dramedy, mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honour their beloved grandmother, reigniting the pair’s old tensions against the backdrop of their family history.
Tackling race relations in contemporary France is mother-son tale A Good Jewish Boy, which follows one of the last Jewish families living in a neglected and distant suburb of Paris as teenager Ruben protects his reclusive mother from the rising antisemitism that is encroaching on their lives. And in the Israeli film Home – a tense and fast-paced drama based on a true story, and a winner at the Israeli Film Academy 2023 – an ambitious young husband abandons his life of Torah study to open a computer business in their strictly Orthodox Jerusalem neighbourhood.
November 7-17 ukjewishfilm.org
