Don't Look Now – showing in two theatres in October and November 2025
The play of Daphne du Maurier's novella, Don't Look Now, is being performed at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, Suffolk, from Thursday 9th until Saturday 25th October 2025 and then at the Salisbury Playhouse, Salisbury, Wiltshire, from Wednesday 29th October until Saturday 15th November 2025.
Don't Look Now was first published in Daphne du Maurier's short story collection Not After Midnight and Other Stories in 1971. In 1973, film director Nicholas Roeg adapted the short story into a film starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as Laura and John, the main protagonists of the story. Fascination with this masterpiece of horror has never waned since, and indeed, the movie has taken on something of a cult status. Following the film's success, the short story collection's name was changed to Don't Look Now and Other Stories, and it has remained so ever since.
In 2007, Nell Leyshon wrote an adaptation of Don't Look Now for the stage, and working with director Lucy Bailey, the play opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in March 2007. It is Nell Leyshon's adaptation, which will be performed at the Salisbury Playhouse and the New Wolsey Theatre in October and November 2025.
Here is what the Salisbury Playhouse have to say about their performance:
Grief is a trickster. It plays with time, with memory... with reality itself. Dare to look – just don't look now.
A couple devastated by loss escape to the shadowed canals of Venice, hoping to leave their past behind – but the city has other plans.
As eerie visions blur the line between the living and the dead, an ominous presence stalks them through the labyrinthine streets. Fate is closing in – can one truly escape their destiny?
A masterclass in slow-burning dread and supernatural unease, Daphne du Maurier's Don't Look Now is a spine-chilling, thrilling descent into grief, guilt and the terrifying possibility that some warnings should never be ignored.
Do go and see this magnificent play if you possibly can, you won't be sorry.
New Wolsey Theatre
Civic Drive
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP1 2AS
Tel: 01473 295900
tickets@wolseytheatre.co.uk
Thursday 9th - Saturday 25th October 2025
Salisbury Playhouse
2 Malthouse Lane
Salisbury
SP2 7RA
Tel: 01722 320333
ticketsales@wiltshirecreative.co.uk
Wednesday 29th October - Saturday 15th November 2025.
Ann Willmore, September 2025.