Watch out for . . .

TOM BURKE, who will play Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa, in director Gadi of Don Carlos, which starts performances at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter next October, before moving to the Nuffield in Southampton and then the Rose in Kingston. Burke (pictured right) and Roll have formed a theatre company called Ara to perform classical . and contemporary work. Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy — with a translation by Robert David MacDonald — will be its innaugural production. Don Carlos is about the icy relationship between

the title character and his father, Philip of Spain. Burke noted that the political shenanigans of King Philip’s court are not a million miles away from current goings-on both in Westminster and Washington. Burke recently starred in Strike for the BBC, in which he plays fictional private detective Cormoran Strike. JOHn McCrea, Josie Walker, lucie Shorthouse, tamsin Carroll and Mina anwar, who are part of the superb company director Jonathan Butterell has assembled for everybody’s talking about Jamie, by Dan Gillespie Sells and tom Macrae — the best new musical in town. McCrea plays a schoolboy and would-be drag queen who wants to go to the school prom in a frock and high heels. the show is previewing at the apollo, Shaftesbury avenue.