On a more positive note, after 12 years, long-running musical Mamma Mia! is moving. I’ve yet to confirm the exact dates, but the hit ABBA show is moving from the Prince of Wales theatre to the Novello on Aldwych, following the excellent Crazy For You. More details when I have them!

The Young Vic has announced a new show: theatre company Sound&Fury are bringing Going Dark to the venue next March. It’s going to be an immersive show with interesting lighting, projections and sound, about a narrator in a planetarium.

Finally, the Evening Standard Theatre Awards longlist has been announced. Congratulations to the National Theatre, Matilda The Musical, Shakespeare’s Globe, Crazy for You and more who’ve all been nominated. I wouldn’t like to be the judge choosing between Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller, James Corden, Ralph Fiennes, Kevin Spacey and Jude Law for the Best Actor category…

This Week’s London Cast News:

• Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally and Olivia Colman will star in Noël Coward’s Hay Fever at, appropriately, the Noël Coward Theatre from 10 February next year
• Ann Emery, the original Grandma in Billy Elliot is returning to the show at the Victoria Palace from November
• Exciting news from the Menier: Frances Ruffelle (Eponine to you and me!) and Matt Rawle (who was so wonderful in Zorro) are to star in Pippin, the venue’s Christmas show.
• More Christmas news: Simon Callow will star in a new version of Charles Dickens’ festive classic, A Christmas Carol at the Arts Theatre from 8 Dec

In other news this week, The Railway Children has announced an extension, and is now booking until 8 January 2012. The production, which won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment earlier in the year, currently stars Marcus Brigstocke as station master Mr Perks.

Did you enjoy spotting some of London theatre’s regulars in BBC2’s The Hour on Tuesday? I certainly did. Abi Morgan, who wrote the series, is also in London’s theatrical news this week. She’s one of the many writers tackling an exciting Headlong theatre project about the legacy of 9/11, directed by Rupert Goold. The show, called Decade, will be staged in an atmospheric disused building in St Katherine Docks from 1 September. Other writers on the project include:

• Christopher Shinn (best-known for Now Or Later at the Royal Court in 2008)
• Lynn Nottage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ruined, which was staged last year at the Almeida Theatre
• Samuel Adamson, who wrote Southwark Fair at the National Theatre
• Mike Bartlett, behind Earthquakes In London for Headlong, and Cock at the Royal Court
• Alecky Blythe, author of hit documentary-musical London Road at the National Theatre
• Columbia University historian Simon Schama, whose historical work Rough Crossings was adapted by Headlong for the stage in 2007

Three shows have released news of their casts this week. They are:

• The Lion in Winter by James Goldman will star Robert Lindsay and Joanna Lumley at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in November
• Cool Hand Luke: Lee Boardman from Corrie and Lisa Eichhorn join Marc Warren in this stage adaptation of the well-known film, coming the Aldwych theatre in September
• Nicholas Lyndhurst joins Ralph Fiennes in Trevor Nunn’s production of The Tempest at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 27 August

Second, a note for any Shakespeare fans out there. Theatre company Antic Disposition is planning to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first performance of The Tempest in London this August. And they’re staging it at London’s Middle Temple Hall, an Elizabethan venue where Shakespeare’s own company once performed. What a treat.

The Royal Court has announced two extensions this week. Both current hit Chicken Soup With Barley, and forthcoming black comedy The Village Bike, have added dates to their runs.

Now to this week’s casting news:

• Robert Sheehan from E4′s Misfits will make his stage debut at the Old Vic in September, playing the lead in JM Synge’s The Playboy Of The Western World. He’ll be performing opposite Ruth Negga and Old Vic regular Niamh Cusack.
• Hustle star Marc Warren returns to the London stage at the Aldwych Theatre in October, playing iconic prisoner Cool Hand Luke in a stage adaptation of Donn Pearce’s classic novel.
• West End stars Oliver Tompsett (previously Fiyero in Wicked), Amy Pemberton (formerly in Footloose and Jersey Boys) and Simon Lipkin (best known as Nicky and Trekkie Monster in Avenue Q) are all signed up to play in new London rock musical, Rock of Ages at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
• Ellen Greene from Pushing Daisies is to play identical triplets (the Enchantress, the Princess and the Nymph Queen) in fantasy musical Betwixt! at the Trafalgar Studios in July.

See you at West End Live!