Producers Brian & Dayna Lee and Nicholas Hytner have announced the world premiere of The Standard of Living, a new play by three-time Olivier Award winner James Graham (Punch, This House, Dear England, Sherwood).
Directed by multi-award winner Nicholas Hytner (The History Boys, One Man, Two Guvnors) with set design by Olivier Award winner Bob Crowley (Giant, The Inheritance), the production will run for a strictly limited 12-week engagement at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Previews begin on 21 September 2026, with opening night on Tuesday 29 September. Tickets are on sale now.
Olivier Award winner Rory Kinnear (Hamlet, Skyfall, The Diplomat) will star as John Maynard Keynes, the radical economist and Bloomsbury Group figure who became a driving force behind arts funding in Britain and helped reshape the global financial order after the First World War. Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova makes her West End debut as the pioneering ballerina Lydia Lopokova, Keynes’s wife and a key figure in the transition from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to British ballet.
Husband to Lydia Lopokova. Lover to Duncan Grant. Friend to Virginia Woolf. Keynes moved between the corridors of power in Whitehall and the radical, bohemian world of artists, writers and lovers determined to live differently. As markets crash and Britain teeters on the brink, he is forced to confront one urgent question: What is a good life?
Alive with music, dance, desire and debate, The Standard of Living is a thrilling, funny and deeply moving portrait of a man who dared to imagine something better.
James Graham said: “The extraordinary life of one of the 20th Century’s most impactful and yet – today – rarely talked about figures crosses so many of my favourite worlds to depict: politics, economics, the arts, diplomacy. I’m in playwrighting heaven. Keynes was a humble, radical world-builder, and I’m grateful to bring that world to theatrical life with Nicholas Hytner, a director I owe so much to, and to be supported into bringing a new play straight into the West End, when newness is so needed.”
Rory Kinnear added: “It is a huge privilege to delve into the fascinating life and legacy of John Maynard Keynes: the pioneering thinker and passionate advocate for life, love and the arts whose hunger for a better life, changed the world. Armed with James’s incredible script and reunited with the ever-brilliant Nicholas Hytner, I can’t wait to work with this extraordinary company to bring Keynes’ story to life in the West End.”
Natalia Osipova commented: “It’s a fantastic honour to be making my West End debut in The Standard of Living with such an incredible line-up of creatives and performers. Lydia Lopokova was a pivotal figure in ballet history, bridging Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes and the development of British ballet last century, and I can’t wait to explore her character.”
The Standard of Living is produced in the West End by Brian & Dayna Lee and Nicholas Hytner, with Len Blavatnik & Danny Cohen for Access Entertainment and Ramin Sabi. For more information, visit standardoflivingplay.com.
