Lyn's Picks: July 12

Anna X (Harold Pinter)

First glimpsed at Vault Festival in 2019, Joseph Charlton’s play now arrives in the West End courtesy of Sonia Friedman’s Re-Emerge season. It burrows into a real life New York story of self-invention, asking what happens when a nobody passes as a somebody in a world of elites. Taking its inspiration from the story of Anna Delvey, the young German woman who passed herself off as the daughter of a Russian oligarch, it stars The Crown’s Emma Corrin as the young woman reinventing herself in a society ripe for deception. Nabhaan Rizwan plays Ariel, the fellow outsider who joins forces with Anna as they try to get a foot in the door.

Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East)

Like so much theatre now, April de Angelis’ response to the climate emergency is available both in person, and is online all next week. Some reviewers of the live performance have said this is more TED Talk than theatre, but some of the best theatre tackling climate change, including 2071 at the Royal Court, has found different ways of melding storytelling and science to remind that time is running out for us and future generations. It may well be very well suited to online presentation.

Bagdad Café (Old Vic)

Welcome to the strangest café in the world, a desolate truck-stop in the middle of the desert where a group of oddballs gather. But new arrival Jasmin, a woman with more than one card up her sleeve, brings transformation and friendship. From Brief Encounter through to Romantics Anonymous, director Emma Rice has proved she has a gift for screen to stage adaptations. She returns to the Old Vic, where she opened Wise Children in 2018, with a piece that should suit her gifts for fairy tale, charm and joyfulness. There is a great cast led by Patrycja Kujawska, Sandra Marvin and Le Gateau Chocolat.