IT’S A HYMN FROM HER SAYS LOLITA TO ADRIAN

AWArD-WInnInG playwright Lolita Chakrabarti has written a new play, called Hymn, that will star her husband, Adrian Lester — fresh from hit BBC1 series Life — at the Almeida Theatre in January.

The couple (pictured far right) last collaborated on the acclaimed red Velvet, which originated at the Kiln and went on to the West End and Brooklyn.

Hymn is about ‘two men who meet

at a funeral and find out that they have much in common’, Chakrabarti told me yesterday. It explores the relationship between Gil, who runs a stationery store (Lester) and Benny, a logistics adviser (who’ll be played by Danny Sapani, left).

‘It’s love between men that’s neither physical nor romantic,’ Chakrabarti said of the piece, which Blanche McIntyre will direct, with performances beginning f rom

January 29. As the title suggests, there’s music, too. Chakrabarti described it as a ‘virtuoso piece for two actors who could sing, act and know how to move’.

Hymn is one of three productions that will relaunch the Islingtonbased Almeida. Director Rebecca Frecknall and dramatist Chris Bush (who penned the Crucible hit Standing At The Sky’s Edge), started work on Tuesday on

Nine Lessons And Carols, a play examining themes of isolation and connection (though it’s not about Covid!), running from December 2.

And British-Lebanese writer Carmen Nasr has written The Maladies, which will be performed by the Almeida Young Company between January 18 and 22, with Diyan Zora directing.