Rory Kinnear and Natalia Osipova to star in world premiere of James Graham's THE STANDARD OF LIVING
Photo credit (left): Chris McAndrew
The world premiere of The Standard of Living, a new play written by three-time Olivier Award winner James Graham, has been announced to play a strictly limited 12-week run at Theatre Royal Haymarket from 21 September.
This bold piece of original new writing will receive its world premiere in London’s West End with a production directed by multi-award winner Nicholas Hytner, featuring set design by Olivier Award winner Bob Crowley.
Olivier Award winner Rory Kinnear (Hamlet, Skyfall, The Diplomat) stars as John Maynard Keynes, the radical economist and member of the influential Bloomsbury Group who became the singular driving force behind arts funding in Britain and built a new and fairer financial model, that ultimately helped reshape the Western World in the aftermath of the First World War. Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova makes her West End debut as the celebrated ballet dancer Lydia Lopokova, a soloist with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes who was considered the embodiment of the new era of modernist ballet.
Can you put a price on happiness, beauty and love?
Husband to ballerina Lydia Lopokova. Lover to Duncan Grant. Friend to Virginia Woolf. Keynes moves between the corridors of power in Whitehall and the intoxicating freedom of a radical circle of artists, writers and lovers - all determined to live differently.
But as markets crash, old systems crumble and Britain teeters on the edge of chaos, one question begins to consume him: What is a good life?
Can art, love and human connection reshape the future before it's too late? Or is the world too addicted to wealth and power to change?
Alive with music, dance, desire and debate, The Standard of Living is a thrilling, funny and deeply moving portrait of a man who dared to imagine something better.
James Graham said: “The extraordinary life of one of the 20th Century's most impactful and yet - today - rarely talked about figures crosses so many of my favourite worlds to depict: politics, economics, the arts, diplomacy. I'm in playwrighting heaven. Keynes was a humble, radical world-builder, and I'm grateful to bring that world to theatrical life with Nicholas Hytner, a director I owe so much to, and to be supported into bringing a new play straight into the West End, when newness is so needed.”
Rory Kinnear said: “It is a huge privilege to delve into the fascinating life and legacy of John Maynard Keynes: the pioneering thinker and passionate advocate for life, love and the arts whose hunger for a better life, changed the world. Armed with James's incredible script and reunited with the ever brilliant Nicholas Hytner, I can't wait to work with this extraordinary company to bring Keynes' story to life in the West End.”
Natalia Osipova added: “It’s a fantastic honour to be making my West End debut in The Standard of Living with such an incredible line-up of creatives and performers. Lydia Lopokova was a pivotal figure in ballet history, bridging Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes and the development of British ballet last century, and I can’t wait to explore her character.”
