A new play from superstar writer James Graham is coming to the West End this autumn. Rory Kinnear will star in unstoppable hit machine Graham's latest, 'The Standard of Living', at London's Theatre Royal Haymarket.
James Graham is arguably the most successful British playwright of our era, having achieved hit after hit from the most unlikely subjects. His breakthrough came with This House, about the whipping operation in the hung parliament of the 1970s. His most recent work, Punch, staged the true story of a fatality caused by a single punch and went on to win every major theatre award this season. He has also done well on television, often with adaptations of his plays – the recent Dear England being a prime example – but also with original stories, notably his hit BBC series Sherwood.
All that is to say that a new James Graham play is a big deal. While most of his works are about superficially boring subjects, he is phenomenal at spinning relatively dry historic episodes into wildly entertaining gold. Hence we have The Standard of Living.
Graham's latest play will star Rory Kinnear as radical economist and Bloomsbury Group stalwart John Maynard Keynes, whose theories that a government could spend its way out of a recession have proven immensely influential in the years and decades that followed. Graham's play sees Keynes and his radical circle – including his wife Lydia Lopokova and lover Duncan Grant – facing up to the Great Depression.
Fresh from his success with the Tony-winning Giant, Bridge boss Nicholas Hytner directs. The Standard of Living is at Theatre Royal Haymarket from September 21 to December 12.
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