In a secret bunker near Tottenham Court Road (well, a rehearsal space within the world-famous Dominion Theatre, but indulge me), a daring new musical is being unveiled to a select few. A narrative is outlined, a love story which involves an astronaut called David disappearing into space after a relationship breakdown with documentary filmmaker Emily, with the action skipping between the past and the present, tracing the coming together and falling apart of the relationship.
It sounds like an unusual story but as the cast stand up to perform a few scenes, even in this stripped back setting it is possible to see something special is going on. Songs which burst forth from scenes that tap into relationship truths of desire, conflict and delusion... the difference between the person you imagine your lover to be, and who they actually are.
Flyby is the name of the musical, created by Theo Jamieson, and directed and co-created by Adam Lenson, and it’ll be having its world premiere at Southwark Playhouse on 3 April, and then embark on a limited six-week run. Judging by what the Standard saw, this is one you absolutely must see.
Emily and Daniel are played by Poppy Gilbert (who’s in The Other Bennett Sister on the BBC at the moment) and Stuart Thompson (seen in Spring Awakening at the Almeida), supported by Gina Beck (Glinda in Wicked on the West End, Sarah Brown as Amy Greenwood, Rupert Young (Dear Evan Hansen) as Jonathan Jay, and Simbi Akande (Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady) as Grace Adams, who all act as storytellers.
Afterward a run through of various - gripping - scenes and songs, Gilbert and Thompson sit down with the Standard to outline the show further, clearly buzzing at striking gold with this one.
”The story is a tricky one,” begins Gilbert, “We start with learning from the storytellers that there is a space mission that's gone wrong. A man who was a psychologically and physically vetted astronaut has gone on a space mission and illegally detached in a in a singular pod into space with no plan of returning. And in order to understand why he did that, you have to meet Emily Baker.
Then you devolve into their love life and their tumultuous, beautiful relationship and what leads to that moment in space - and will he ever come back? We're treating it as literal, but I think it's this beautiful metaphor about how far away can you run from your own life.”
One of the scenes they performed was an early interaction with the two characters, one of the first times they expose themselves and understand just how vulnerable and confronting a relationship can be.
Thompson says of this situation, “It can flip on a dial where it's exciting to take off that mask in front of another person, and then all of a sudden what's beneath gets thrown back at you, all those insecurities and things that you've shared. And then you're like, actually I'm going to go to space! I want to get away from you, quite a long way away.
Theo said such a brilliant thing to me the other day because we're just sketching out the end of the show at the minute and for Daniel, it's figuring out ‘Maybe I'm just one of those people who should be on their own.’ I think they’re both going, we love each other, don't we? So why are we hurting each other?”
Safe to say this is not your average rom-com, this is a musical to really get into the complex psychology of human relationships, a deep realness which inevitably means a darker take than you might expect from the genre.
“I'm not super well versed in musical theatre,” says Gilbert, “I have loved it my whole life, but I don't have the depth of knowledge that some of the other members of our company do. But it does feels like it's got one foot in that genre and one foot in a Jacobian drama of wanting, yearning, longing, and then another foot - it’s a many-footed beast - in a gorgeous American sexy hot romance.”
There’s certainly erotically-charged sparks flying between Emily and Daniel as they flirt at the beginning - something which these two old friends had to work on, though not as much as the scenes were they begin to hate each other - but even then there’s an exploration of how much desire and fantasy become mixed with the reality of that person, to essentially create a new person standing in front of the actual one.
Gilbert says, “How much can you reveal of yourself? You might feel like you get as close to that as humanly possible, but there's still contextual judgments from the other person. They will have a judgement on what they learn about you, subconsciously. And I think that's what it's about. It's like, ‘I show you all of me, but you can only understand me through your own context. So build me out of all these things you've learned.’
At the early stage of romance and lust, it's about showing each other's minds but how much can you know about another person? And are you actually listening? Are you actually getting to know me or are you just being like, ‘you're hot and I can make you what I need you to be...’? Hurrying along: ‘whatever you say, now take your top off!’
It’s horribly relatable, where little red flags come up and you ignore them because you like the rest.”
The pair of them were involved in the first workshops for Flyby in 2024, and then when it was further developed by the National Theatre. Even though it was Gilbert’s first venture into musical theatre, and Thompson’s second, the material was so strong that they said they made it impossible for Lenson to cast anyone else - “We said, if you’re going to do it, we will be there!” says Thompson.
While both of them can certainly sing, the nature of Flyby is that its more about the feeling than belting out the songs; they are delivered in a raw and real way, which even at this stage is powerfully affecting. So much so that they are both steeling themselves for the run ahead, already diligently behaving themselves - “we can’t wait for a martini in May” - taking singing lessons, and working with a movement and intimacy director called Lucy Hind.
“She’s helping us with what we're both struggling with the most, which is de-role-ing. Not letting it leak, because it is so emotional,” says Gilbert, “We're really, really good mates and so we have tactility. We're close, but of course it's a different kind of intimacy and across the story it fragments and they fall out of love. I think the hardest thing is the practicality of it, the energy required. I've done shows before that are emotionally exhausting, but I've never taken on a role this big, and involves screaming in the face of your friend. I have to step into this space and go, ‘OK, now this face is Daniel, it's not Stu anymore, it's not my pal, it's this person who I'm about to fall head over he's in love with.’”
Audiences are sure to be caught up in all this high emotion, and Thompson has been considering the message he hopes people get from it.
“I had a thought about this last night because we did our first ‘cope through’ we called it, because it was the first time we'd done it all the way through and we were both spent. I was walking home and I thought, ‘I think it's about the triumph of trying.’ It's about. Theo said he goes to the theatre to see people fighting for their lives and at the end, I hope there’s a feeling that we're not on our own. Reach out for love or connection. We could be isolated and we could run away from these feelings. It's really scary to be a person in the world and confronting and vulnerable, but do it. Don’t shut yourself off. Jump in.”
Says Gilbert, “We're really, really good mates and so we have tactility. We're close, but of course it's a different kind of intimacy and also across the story it fragments and they fall out of love. I guess figuring that out and figuring out the the emotional journey. I could just cry the whole way through it, but that's not very interesting for me.
I think the hardest thing is the practicality of it, just the energy that is required. I've done shows before that are emotionally exhausting, but I've never taken on a role this big, and screaming in the face of your friend, like I have to step into this space and go, OK, now this face is Daniel, it's not Stu anymore, it's not my pal, it's this person who I'm about to fall head over he's in love with. That helps, but it's really hard and it’s like running a race, you've got to pace it so perfectly or you'll spend yourself too early.”
“Harriet Walter, I forget what her book's called, but she says it yeah, yeah, yeah, where she said, you know, vulnerability, anger, you know, aggression, all these kind of ugly feelings that we're not really allowed to feel in real life. The stage is as safe for us, you know, to exercise them out and for an audience to live vicariously. We need it. And and we get really ugly in this.”
Flyby is at Southwark Playhouse Borough from Friday 3 April to Saturday 16 May 2026. Tickets are available from www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/flyby/
