The Emmy, Golden Globe and Olivier award-winning actor Brian Cox, makes his return to the London stage in Spring 2024 starring in Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Often regarded as the greatest American play of the 20th Century, this landmark new production will be helmed by award-winning director Jeremy Herrin.
O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play depicts a summer day in the life of the Tyrones, closely based on O’Neill’s own chaotically dysfunctional family. Deeply moving and uplifting in equal measure, it’s a compelling story of love, hate, betrayal and addiction and the impossible fragility of family bonds.
Following his recent acclaimed production of Best of Enemies, Jeremy Herrin’s new production will bring into sharp focus the universality of Eugene O’Neill’s beautifully crafted characters and language, to create an unmissable theatrical event.
__Access Performances__
Captioned Performance - Tuesday 7th May 2024
Audio Described Performance - Tuesday 14th May 2024
I’d like to see a bit more daring than a tweak to the acting next time this play is revived. This is the third ‘Long Day’s Journey’ to hit the West End in 12 years, and none have exactly been formally wild. There’s some nifty sound design here from Tom Gibbons – sepulchral fog horns, and subtler ambient sounds – but mostly this is a very straight production.
By no means is this a perfect production. The stripped-back approach is really exposing, and there are moments when it doesn’t bear up to the scrutiny, especially in the whisky-heavy later scenes. You miss the heft, too, when neither Cox nor Clarkson are on stage – less a criticism of the sons than a testament to the hypnotic skill of the parents – and some scenes in the second half feel really bum-numbingly long. And it’s not exactly an enjoyable night out at the theatre either. What it is, though, is very impressive, often mesmerising and – when it hits right – really profoundly moving.
2024 | West End |
West End |
Videos