The Young Vic is teaming up with the Royal Opera House and a South African theatre company for a musical inspired by one refugee’s true story.
A Man of Good Hope is based on the book of the same name by Oxford University academic Jonny Steinberg and traces one man’s flight from civil war in his childhood Somalia through the continent to South Africa.
David Lan, the Young Vic’s artistic director, said he knew he wanted to bring the story to the stage before he finished reading the book, which he received as a Christmas gift in 2014.
“The idea I had is the journey through Africa, through the different musical styles, expressing the incredible cultural diversity of that continent.”
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The show will premiere in Cape Town and come to London later this year.
Other new shows for this year at the Waterloo theatre include a revival of the award-winning Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall, who went on to write hit West End Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon.
The play, about a young schizophrenic patient’s relationship with his doctors, stars Daniel Kaluuya and Luke Norris. Kaluuya, a past winner of the Editor’s Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, will play the patient.
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