{"id":482378,"date":"2026-03-18T15:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/482378\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:23:14","slug":"gillian-anderson-to-get-in-the-ring-with-billy-crudup-for-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf-in-london-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/482378\/","title":{"rendered":"Gillian Anderson to get \u2018in the ring\u2019 with Billy Crudup for Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in London | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gillian Anderson is to return to the West End in a role she has coveted \u201cfor decades\u201d. The Sex Education star will appear opposite Billy Crudup in a revival of Edward Albee\u2019s marital meltdown classic Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the autumn. Staged in-the-round, the production will be directed by Marianne Elliott at the intimate @sohoplace<\/a> theatre.<\/p>\n

Anderson will play Martha who spars with her professor husband George over drinks with a young married couple in the 1962 play. \u201cMartha\u2019s rage is inseparable from her longing, her disappointment and her need to be seen \u2013 all things still eminently relatable 60 years on,\u201d said Anderson. The role was first played on Broadway by Uta Hagen, on screen a few years later by Elizabeth Taylor (opposite her husband Richard Burton) and in a 1996 London revival by Diana Rigg. \u201cI\u2019ve wanted to play Martha for decades,\u201d said Anderson. \u201cI\u2019m thrilled Billy Crudup is joining me in the ring as George.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crudup is becoming a London theatre regular. The star of The Morning Show made his West End theatre debut in 2024 portraying 19 characters in a solo show, Harry Clarke<\/a>. He returned for a musical version of the western High Noon<\/a> which closed earlier this month. Anderson\u2019s London theatre roles have included Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire<\/a>, a sensation at the Young Vic theatre in 2014, and Broadway star Margo Channing in All About Eve<\/a>, based on the Hollywood classic, in 2019.<\/p>\n

Elliott, whose upcoming projects include directing Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey<\/a> in Sondheim\u2019s Sunday in the Park With George at the Barbican next summer, said: \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play of astonishing emotional precision \u2013 brutal, witty and deeply human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Designed by Miriam Buether, the show will be produced by Nica Burns, the owner of @sohoplace, and by Sonia Friedman Productions. Burns described it as \u201cthe first American classic\u201d to be presented at the new theatre, which opened in 2022<\/a>. For Friedman, it is \u201cone of the defining plays of the modern theatre \u2013 raw, ferociously funny and devastating in equal measure\u201d.<\/p>\n

The play, which will also star Josh Dylan and Phoebe Horn, runs from 21 September to 19 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gillian Anderson is to return to the West End in a role she has coveted \u201cfor decades\u201d. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-482378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}