Hampstead Theatre new season plays by Tom Stoppard and Richard Bean

Seven new plays and one revival will be staged at the Eton Avenue venue over autumn and winter telling stories that range from friendship and basketball, to AI, astrophysics, bellringing, poetry, and fantasy board games.

They include debuts by Daisy Hall and Jamie Armitage, four world premieres by Richard Bean, Stella Feehily, TV's House of Cards creator Beau Willimon, and Jack Bradfield, plus a UK premiere by Rajiv Joseph, and a major revival of Stoppard's The Invention of Love.

Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll was Hampstead Theatre's bestselling play ever now the playwright is allowing them to stage his 1997 play The Invention of Love (Image: Manuel Harlan)

Hampstead Theatre's Producer and Chief Executive Greg Ripley-Duggan said the season proved their "commitment to championing the original" with a line-up of "brilliant, ingenious and surprising work by playwrights at every stage of their careers."

Since the theatre lost its entire annual Arts Council funding two years ago he compares running the venue to "a high wire act without a safety net".

"It feels we are going in the right direction but I only need to programme two unpopular shows and we are in trouble again," he says.

"We needed to increase the box office, shows had to start earning their keep, and everything is good so far, with productions breaking even and generating a surplus -  Rock 'n' Roll was the biggest selling show in Hampstead’s history.

The theatre's producer and Chief Exec Greg Ripley-Duggan compares running it without subsidy to 'a high wire act without a safety net' (Image: Shaun Webb)

"But it's hard work, and a challenging market, everything is connected to everything else, and it's all about money, but new writing is what we stand for, so let's hang onto our essence and see if we can make it work." 

Opening the season on September 5, is Feehily's The Lightest Element which shines a light on eminent astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who changed our perception of stars. Set in Boston in 1956, the academic is interviewed by a student journalist as she's about to be appointed the first female head of a Harvard department. Her only problems are a covert investigation into whether she's a communist sympathiser, and the entrenched conservatism of her male colleagues.

Following last year's success of To Have And To Hold, Richard Bean returns with Reykjavik which examines the vanished world of the Hull trawler fleet.

Richard Bean's To Have and To Hold was a hit at Hampstead last year, now his new play Reykjavik explores the loss of a Hull trawler in the 1970s (Image: The Other Richard)

Set in February 1975 off the coast of Iceland, the sidewinder Graham Greene ices up, heels over, and sinks, taking fifteen of her crew with her. On impulse, despised trawler-owner Donald Claxton flies out to see the survivors, setting in train an evening of drinking, romance and story-telling that will change lives forever.

Ripley-Duggan says Tom Stoppard "was very happy with our production of Rock 'n' Roll and I am particularly thrilled that he has granted us the rights to present the first major UK production of The Invention of Love since it's premiere 25 years ago. It's a beautiful dream play about love and humanity."

It follows English poet, A. E. Housman who upon his death is transported to the Oxford University of his youth, alive with the academic debates that shaped his work, and the friendships that shaped his life.

Meanwhile East is South by American stage and screen writer Beau Willimon is a tense thriller which asks "what if we are no longer the most evolved intelligence on the planet."

Following a security breach involving Logos, a sophisticated artificial intelligence programme on the verge of consciousness, two coders are interrogated in a race against time to find out who has done what and why, to avoid a threat to humanity.

Ripley-Duggan says the Downstairs studio space will continue to stage work by new and emerging writers.

"Part of what our audience want is to come to the theatre and see new stuff. You get a huge range of different voices, and everything is a surprise."

Work includes Daisy Hall's comic play Bellringers, Rajiv Joseph's new work King James – a funny and moving play about the friendship between two men, and their mutual passion for basketball - and the great ‘King’ LeBron James.

And following a sell-out run and rave reviews at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Jamie Armitage’s An Interrogation.

Inspired by real events this debut play by the co-director of  SIX: The Musical is a chilling Police procedural about power, deception and perspectives on the truth.

As a detective interviews a subject about a missing woman, both are playing a clever game but live stream cameras manipulate the audience viewpoint and offer clues to the underlying psychological drama.

Then The Habits by Jack Bradfield, is about the regular meetings of a group of fantasy board-game enthusiasts that asks whether this is just escapism, or whether the skills they develop are of use in their own lives.

Ripley-Duggan says such spaces are about feeding the eco-system that allows new writers to develop into household names.

"Lack of funding is going to kill new writing if we are not careful or drive it into a particular place so if we can do it, we should. But all of it is only possible through the philanthropic generosity of our supporters, the loyalty of our wonderful audiences, and the astonishing commitment and determination of the small but brilliant team at Hampstead."

Tickets for the new season are on sale to patrons and members and public booking opens on Tuesday 28 May.