The big news on the musicals front is a landmark anniversary: the Cameron Mackintosh version of Les Miserables has been with us for a full quarter of a century, and will mark the event with an all-time first — three productions of the show will play simultaneously in London. While the original edition continues at the Queen's, a new U.K. touring version will bring the title, if not the same Trevor Nunn-John Caird production, back at its original London home, the Barbican Theatre (Sept. 14-Oct. 2) where Cameron Mackintosh first launched the English-language version of the Paris-originated Boublil/Schönberg tuner based on Victor Hugo, in collaboration with the RSC; and an all-star, one-off concert version will also be staged at London's mammoth 02 Arena Oct. 3. The latter will include Broadway's Norm Lewis, teen pop sensation Nick Jonas, Lea Salonga, Matt Lucas and Alfie Boe amongst the company.

Meanwhile, the transatlantic celebrations of another key anniversary — the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim — continues in London at the Donmar Warehouse, a venue that has regularly championed his work and will continue that legacy with a new production of Passion, starring Elena Roger (Eva in the last London revival of Evita), from Sept. 10. It will form the centrepiece of a "Sondheim at 80" season that will also include concert stagings of two previous Donmar productions of Merrily We Roll Along and Company (to be staged at the West End's Queen's Theatre, Oct. 31 and Nov. 7, respectively), and interviews with the Master himself (Oct. 11) and a discussion between the Donmar's former and current artistic directors Sam Mendes and Michael Grandage (Sept. 16).

More key musical dates for the fall include the London transfer of Broadway's Fela! to the National's Olivier Theatre (from Nov. 6), with Sahr Ngaujah reprising his New York performance in the title role of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, joining a new British company in Bill T. Jones' production. The Young Vic launches its fall season with a new production of Galt MacDermot's short-lived 1984 Broadway musical The Human Comedy, being presented as a community musical with a chorus of 100 (Sept. 13-18).

	Victoria Hamilton-Barritt in Flashdance
	photo by Catherine Ashmore

Chichester is also responsible for a number of plays heading to town this fall. Onassis, starring Robert Lindsay (the Tony winning star of Me and My Girl) in the title role of Martin Sherman's new play about the late Greek shipping magnate and husband of Jackie O, is re-staged at the Novello Theatre from Sept. 30, after trying out at Chichester last summer; while Yes, Prime Minister, a stage version of the long-running '80s British TV series of the same name, heads to the Gielgud from Chichester from Sept. 17.

The name of the game elsewhere on the plays front is mainly revivals or transpositions from novels and screenplays, such as Sebastian Faulks' best-selling 1993 novel Birdsong (adapted to open at the Comedy Theatre, starring Ben Barnes under the direction of Trevor Nunn, from Sept. 18), and David Mamet's 1987 film House of Games (adapted at the Almeida, from Sept. 9). There will be return runs for previous stagings of the National Theatre of Scotland's 2006 production of Black Watch to the Barbican (Nov. 27-Jan. 22) and Complicite's production of A Disappearing Number (Novello Theatre, Sept. 10-25 only), both of which have been seen in New York. Meanwhile, real-life father-and-son team Timothy and Samuel West will reprise their performances as father-and-son(s) in Caryl Churchill's A Number that they first did at Sheffield's Crucible Studio in 2006, at the Menier Chocolate Factory from Sept. 29.

More starry new revivals due around town include Ira Levin's Deathtrap, directed by Matthew Warchus and starring Simon Russell Beale, Broadway's Jonathan Groff and Estelle Parsons (now at the Noel Coward, opening officially Sept. 7); Clifford Odets' The Country Girl, starring Martin Shaw and Jenny Seagrove under the direction of Rufus Norris (at the Apollo Theatre from Oct. 6); J.B. Priestley's When We Are Married, with Maureen Lipman and Roy Hudd (Garrick Theatre from Oct. 19); and Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, with Alexander Hanson, fresh from his stint in Broadway's A Little Night Music, joining his real-life wife Samantha Bond (Vaudeville Theatre from Nov. 4).

Deathtrap stars Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff

photo by Hugo Glendinning