If you’re into experimental and brand new theatre, make sure you check out this summer’s Almeida Festival, running from 9 July to 3 August. It’s a really eclectic programme, including international theatre companies, new collaborations and award-winning artists. Look out for Bryony Kimming’s new show, Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model; Lost Dogs’ new show Rabbits; and Dante or Die’s I Do, a site-specific piece that takes place in six hotel rooms 10 minutes before a wedding is due to start. For the full line-up, see almeida.co.uk/festival-2013.

The line-up for this year’s Kids Week has also been announced. Running for the whole of August in 2013, there are 34 top London shows offering free tickets to children aged 16 and under with every adult ticket bought. As well as top musicals, drama and dance shows, there are also workshops for kids interested in trying ballet, learning pop songs with the cast of Let It Be and tap dancing with Top Hat. Tickets go on sale on 18 June from kidsweek.co.uk.

The latest news from the National Theatre is that Rufus Norris will direct a new stage adaptation of the acclaimed novel Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death And Hope In A Mumbai Undercity next year. The novel by Katherine Boo is being adapted by playwright David Hare, and is a non-fiction account of life in the slums of Annawadi. If the adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time is anything to go by, the National could have another hit on their hands.

London Theatre Cast News

• Olivier Award-winning actor Julian Glover will star in the UK premiere of The Scottsboro Boys when it opens at the Young Vic later this year
• Joanna Lumley and Andrew Scott will star in two short plays by Harold Pinter as part of a programme of platform events at the Trafalgar Studios
• Maureen Lipman stars in the world premiere of Oliver Cotton’s Daytona at the Park Theatre from 10 July
• Danny Webb joins Imelda Staunton and Toby Jones in the UK premiere of Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation, part of the Royal Court’s Theatre Local project later this year
• Olivier Award winner Gawn Grainger and The Lord Of The Rings star Billy Boyd have joined the cast of Macbeth at Shakespeare’s Globe

One of my favourite London theatres, Shakespeare’s Globe has announced details of its forthcoming season. In 2013, there’ll be appearances from Roger Allam as Prospero in The Tempest, alongside Colin Morgan (from Merlin) and Jessie Buckley (from I’d Do Anything). The Tempest plays alongside A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth; plus there’ll be a new musical Gabriel, a modern play called Blue Stockings and a new take on Euipides’ The Bacchae called The Lightning Child. Three of last year’s astonishing Globe To Globe plays return too: South Africa’s Venus & Adonis, a Georgian production of As You Like It and Belarus Free Theatre’s King Lear, along with Footsbarn’s Indian Tempest. Head to their website to find out more!

Congratulations to Rupert Goold, the acclaimed Artistic Director of the Headlong Theatre Company, who is going to replace Michael Attenborough as Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre in August. Attenborough steps down after 11 years at the venue; Goold’s first production as leader will be in January 2014. Before that, you can catch the director’s handiwork in the world premiere of the new musical based on Bret Easton Ellis’ best-selling novel American Psycho at the venue in the autumn.

Following the successful Our Country’s Good at the St James Theatre, new play The Thrill Of Love opens next month. Running from 27 March to 4 May, The Thrill Of Love tells the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK, after she is convicted of murdering her lover David Blakely, and features music by Billie Holiday. The show’s original cast (including Fate Castelow, Hilary Tones, Maya Wasovicz and Katie West) transfers with the production.

London Theatre Cast News:

• Charlie Rowe, who stars as Peter Pan in Sky’s miniseries Neverland, joins Henry Goodman in the Old Vic’s production of The Winslow Boy, opening next month
• Johnny Flynn, Simon Paisley Day and Elizabeth Berrington will feature in the forthcoming production of Bruce Norris’ The Low Road, opening at the Royal Court next month