PG Critic’s Choice Theater Tour heads to London stages in April

The Post-Gazette’s annual Critic’s Choice London Theater Tour lifts off April 26, direct via British Airways, and returns May 3.

We can’t promise royalty, but the flowers and trees of a London spring will be in bloom, along with palaces, street life, museums, shops, pubs, art exhibits, cathedrals and history on every side.

Three plays are included plus an optional fourth:

• “Jack Absolute Flies Again” transforms Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1770s comic classic “The Rivals” to the heroic Battle of Britain for its 80th anniversary. Adapted by Richard Bean (“One Man, Two Guvnors”) and Oliver Chris and staged at that theatrical mecca, the National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre.

• “Leopoldstadt,” the premiere of Tom Stoppard’s new passionate drama of love and endurance, is an intimate story with epic sweep about a Jewish family in Vienna.

• Another play (plus an option) to be selected as spring openings are announced in the next few weeks.

Critic’s Choice tours are informal, led for 30 years by Chris Rawson, Post-Gazette senior theater critic. The group stays at the Radisson Blu Edwardian Kenilworth Hotel, in walking distance of the British Museum and West End theaters, Covent Garden and Trafalgar Square.

Included is a welcoming dinner, professionally guided London walking tour and, by popular request, an ample afternoon tea. Each day there will be an optional tour or recommended museum, but you will also want to strike out on your own, using the bus and subway pass provided. You could add as many as four more plays or concentrate on London’s other attractions.

The package includes round-trip travel on British Airways between Pittsburgh and London; transfers between the London airport and hotel; full English breakfast buffet daily; welcoming dinner; afternoon tea; three theater tickets (and advice on booking others); London bus and subway pass; guided London walking tour; taxes, VAT and gratuities on included items; and critic Rawson’s gentle guiding along the way.

Only 20 spaces are available. The basic tour price is $3,693, double occupancy; the single supplement is $659. This price is based on fares that may increase if booked after Feb. 3. Registration requires a deposit of $500 per person and a completed reservation request form. All payments are payable to Gulliver’s Travels, 634 Beaver St., Sewickley, PA 15143.

2020 theater trip schedule

• Stratford Festival, Stratford, July 21-24: Three Shakespeares, a modern comedy and “Spamalot.”

• Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Aug. 31Sept. 3: Five plays and a vineyard dinner.

• Traditional Broadway ShowPlane: in the works for the fall, dates TBA.