Wilton's Music Hall Reveals Autumn 2024 Season Linup

Wilton's Music Hall has announced its Autumn 2024 Season filled with an array of theatre and music with a host of performers including Anton Lesser, Rupert Everett, and Tim Key; with performances from the National Youth Theatre, the internationally renowned Släpstick, music from the Swingles, Brian Clemens and Francesca Confortini and many more. The theatre will also round off the year with the West End's longest running pantomime Potted Panto back in the East End for December.

The season kicks off with high camp in Franks Closet (03-14 September) a witty, poignant, eccentric, and kitsch musical theatre show, framed by the artifice of the musical hall and propelled by the increasingly surreal musical turns of the divas. This show will feel very much at home at Wilton's having transferred from the Union Street Theatre.

In a year of big elections both sides of the pond it is timely that the critically acclaimed The War of the Worlds (16-26 October) created by Rhum and Clay, is back in a new production in partnership with the National Youth Theatre REP Company. This legendary science fiction thriller is inspired by H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel and Orson Welles' classic radio play and has been playfully reimagined for our era of Fake News and ‘alternative facts.' Featuring eighteen of Britain's most exciting young performers in a world where the internet has replaced the radio as the medium through which to make sense of life.

Following her critically acclaimed all-male productions of H.M.S. Pinafore, Iolanthe and The Mikado, Sasha Regan makes a welcome return to Wilton's to present one of Gilbert and Sullivan's most famous operettas, The Pirates Of Penzance (29 October – 23 November). Her ability to bring out the inherent humour and joy will create an award winning, all-male, and exquisitely funny new take on this classic.

Football and theatre fans with love this high-octane show written and performed by Alex Hill Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse For England (25-27 September). It is a blisteringly funny new play about football fanatics and comes to Wilton's following a hugely successful run at the Edinburgh Festival and Southwark Theatre.

There is no shortage of spoken word in this Autumn Season at Wilton's in a captivating weave of his own words Red Sky at Sunrise (25-27 September) tells Laurie Lee's extraordinary story through his much-loved trilogy, Cider with Rosie, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, and A Moment of War with music from the Orchestra of Swan. Two of the UK's best-loved actors, Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall, Endeavour) and Charlie Hamblett (Killing Eve, Ghosts, The Burning Girls) play the role of Laurie Lee older and younger, along with a rich array of other characters telling his story from when he famously walked out of the Slad valley one midsummer morning and ended up fighting with the International Brigades against Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War. 

For one night only, and not to be missed, Posting Letters To The Moon (01 October) is a romantic, funny, and very touching portrait of life during the second World War featuring spellbinding readings of letters between Oscar-nominated actor Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) and her explorer and writer husband Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming).

Wilton's is hosting The Man with Night Sweats (02-04 October) presented by Dead Poets Live. The Man with Night Sweats is to many Thom Gunn's finest and most moving collection, addressing the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and including some of the most devastating elegies in English poetry. Gunn paints a vivid portrait of city life in San Francisco, the gay community of that time, and the friends and lovers who made up his ‘family' and that were taken by the disease. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Thom Gunn's death and this new production will star BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated actor, a director and author Rupert Everett.

World-class musicians from the internationally renowned musical clowns Släpstick will present Schërzo (07-12 October) a totally unique and brilliant show of classical music, physical theatre, and raucous comedy. Masterpieces from Rossini, Brahms, Schubert, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin, and more, meet comedy heroes such as Victor Borge, Laurel & Hardy, Danny Kaye, and Charlie Chaplin in this clownish concerto which is in English.

There will be more comedy from with the multiple five-star sell-out Edinburgh show CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation (28 September) as it returns to Wilton's for another rip-roaring crime comedy show made up entirely on the spot to solve a murder as chosen by the audience.

There is no shortage of music in this Autumn Season for the past ten years, the historic stage at Wilton's has witnessed uproarious performances by the charismatic Tom Carradine and his alternative superstars and singing siblings and the uproarious, good old-fashioned knees up that is Carradine's Cockney Sing-along returns (24 September) and Carradine's Cockney Sing-along Featuring Tom Carradine And His China Plates (25 November) where he is accompanied by his incredible 5-piece band.

In the rest of a packed season Wilton's welcome pianist and composer Brian Clemens as he leads his Jazz Orchestra with the powerful voice of Francesca Confortini (18 September) for a night of exhilarating golden era jazz. There is more incredible music from Maestro Dmytro Morykit who returns to Wilton's with his exquisite live performance to F. W. Murnau's landmark vampire film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, (29 November) giving audiences a fresh and immersive experience to this classic piece of cinema and music and there will be music and words from Steve Pretty, best known as bandleader of internationally renowned brass pioneers Hackney Colliery Band in Steve Pretty (And Friends) On The Origin Of The Pieces (30 November). More music will come from the world-famous Players Theatre (26 Nov) who play tribute to the music stars of yester-year in an evening of truly magnificent song, dance, magic and music.

The magnificent Grammy winners the Swingles present Together For The Holidays (27 November) to open the festive season and fill the hall with holiday favourites and plenty of good cheer and more joyful merriment from Martin (Prendergast) & Friends – It's Christmas (28 November) who are back at Wilton's with their first-ever Christmas cabaret.

More festive joy will come from comedian and poet Tim Key as he brings his Christmas extravaganza Chrimbo Bimbo (09, 10, 16 & 17 December) to Wilton's. He will tether his long-suffering reindeer in Grace Alley and shove his hands in his sack once more. There will be sleighbells, grubby old sprouts, and some festive film footage to boot. Christmas jumpers will be encouraged.

And finally, Wilton's will celebrate Christmas at Wilton's with the West End's longest running pantomime POTTED PANTO (04 December-04 January) now in its second year in the East End . The riotous and enchanting Olivier Award nominated Christmas madcap ride from Daniel Clarkson, Jefferson Turner, and Richard Hurst, through all the best-loved characters from the wonderful world of panto is delightful festive fun for all the family.

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