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

The Laurance Olivier Awards last night celebrated London’s thriving theatre scene in a ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

You probably know who the winners are by now, but do you agree?

It was no surprise that Mark Rylance continued his run of award success by picking up Best Actor for his portrayal of Johnny “Rooster” Byron in Jerusalem.

Rachel Weisz beat off strong competition from Gillian Anderson, Imelda Staunton and Juliet Stevenson to take the Best Actress award for her portrayal of Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Katori Hall became the first black female playwright to win Best New Play for The Mountaintop (proving that the spirit of International Women’s Day lives on.)

Spring Awakening, despite closing early due to low ticket sales, received the Best New Musical Award.

And congratulations to Rupert Goold who won Best Director for Enron (which we rather liked too.)

Have you seen any of the award-winners? Did the Oliviers get it right, or is there a theatrical gem they missed? We’d love to hear your views.

Yesterday, when the economists declared the recession officially over, I went to see a play about Enron, a financial “adventure” that could well be seen as related to our recent depression.

As opening nights go, it was pretty spectacular. The show’s already had rave reviews in Chichester and at the Royal Court. (You’ll remember we sent city worker Will to give us his views on the play back in September.) In addition, Rupert Goold had won the Critics Circle Award for Best Director earlier in the day, so excitement was running high in the theatre.

Add to that the swathes of stars also seeing the show, and I was struggling to stop myself staring, starstruck. Sharing a row with Charles Dance and Lindsay Duncan was one thing.

Spotting John Simm, Frank Skinner, David Dimbleby, AA Gill, Felicity Kendal, Cillian Murphy, Micky Dolenz and Benedict Cumberbatch spread throughout the rest of the theatre was another. I’m sure there were loads more famous faces there – the place was teeming with (really random) celebrities! Rupert Goold was also there, big-haired and relaxed in a brown suit.

Without a ticket to the after-party (sniff), I can’t tell you about anyone else, but I can tell you that Enron seems to be *the* West End play of the moment. It’s a fantastically fast-paced show; exciting, dramatic and revealing even to someone who understands incredibly little (and possibly cares less) about the financial world of the 1990s. Because Lucy Prebble’s play is about the characters as well as the money, combined with Goold’s trademark directorial craziness, it’s a brilliant piece of theatre.

Eron is booking at the Noel Coward Theatre until 8 May.

Wicked has been voted the best musical of the Noughties by visitors to show-and-stay.co.uk, with Spring Awakening and Avenue Q coming in second and third. It’s nice for the Wicked team, but to be honest, I’m not convinced by any poll that has Billy Elliot at No.7 (surely top 3?), and is missing Mamma Mia, Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis.

Next up is Dirty Dancing, which is having a Valentine’s Day Charity Gala on 13 February in aid of Magic 105.4′s Cash for Kids charity. If you’re a fan, make sure you’re there for this special show.

Also this week, the Tricycle Theatre’s announced the third play in their Irish Season. Pat McCabe’s The Dead School joins Greta Garbo Came To Donegal and Chronicles of Long Kesh at the theatre this spring. The Dead School arrives at the Tricycle after a Ireland and a sell-out run at the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival in 2009, where it was nominated for three Irish Times Theatre Awards including Best Production. If you saw it, tell us about it!

But all the big news today has been about the National Theatre’s new season. And it’s got me breathless with excitement.

There’s Oscar-winner Danny Boyle directing a new take on Frankenstein, and (my personal favourite) Rupert Goold directing a new play by Mike Bartlett about global warming called Earthquakes In London. Shakespeare fans can see a £10 Hamlet with Clare Higgins and Rory Kinnear, directed by Nicholas Hytner, as well as Twelfth Night directed by Peter Hall for his 80th birthday, starring his daughter, film and stage actress Rebecca Hall, as Viola. Wow.

There’s more: I’m personally chuffed to see two shows transferring from my hometown theatres in Northampton: Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond The Horizon and Tennessee Williams’s Spring Storm from the Royal & Derngate Theatres start the new season in April.

Read the whole story of the National Theatre’s 2010 plans on the Official London Theatre website, and put the booking dates in your diaries today! It’s going to be great.

Enron, Royal Court Theatre, London

City worker Will H offers his take on Enron at the Royal Court Theatre:

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Enron. This new play lays bare the archetypal corporate crime of the 1990s. White-collar crime may not be traditionally fertile ground for drama, but writer Lucy Prebble and cast have done an excellent job of bringing to life the story of Enron: blowing up the bubble and then blowing up the company. 

At the heart of the play is a classic and well-crafted tragedy and morality tale. Accounting geeks Jeff Skilling (Samuel West) and Andy Fastow (Tom Goodman-Hill) find success exploiting aggressive interpretations of accounting rules. Amid ever-growing adulation and constant pressure, the pair double-up their bets and become ever more detached from the operating realities. Thus a minor sin snowballs into the fraud of the decade.

As the executives help corrupt – and are corrupted by - the “irrational exuberance” of the age, the audience is entertained by a series of well-aimed vignettes on the financial system. Expressed via the media of sassy Texans, Jedi energy traders and a pack of raptors, even mark-to-market accounting and off-balance-sheet finance can make for a riveting, thought-provoking night out.

Enron has sold out its run at the Royal Court. The production transfers to the Noël Coward Theatre from 16 January 2010 and is currently booking until 8 May.