FLYBY

The world premiere of London’s thrilling new musical love story.

“Could you build me a distant lighthouse, with you the light to guide me home?”

Originally developed in 2025 by the National Theatre, FLYBY is a bold new musical fusing an exhilarating love story with the vast and endless loneliness of space.

Written by Theo Jamieson (RSC) and directed and created with Adam Lenson (Cable Street), FLYBY has its world premiere at Southwark Playhouse Borough for six weeks only, featuring a contemporary score and an extraordinary cast.

Astronaut Daniel steals a spacecraft and vanishes into space, leaving Emily and their complicated past behind. Through flashbacks and space logs, this captivating new musical reveals the forces that drove him to leave.

Emily and Daniel are played by Poppy Gilbert (My Oxford Year – Netflix, The Other Bennett Sister – BBC) and Stuart Thompson (Spring Awakening – Almeida, SAS: Rogue Heroes – BBC). They are joined by Gina Beck (Glinda in Wicked – West End, Sarah Brown in Guys & Dolls – The Bridge Theatre) as Amy Greenwood, Rupert Young (Dear Evan Hansen – West End, Bridgerton – Netflix) as Jonathan Jay, and Simbi Akande (Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady – The Mill at Sonning, Hamilton – West End) as Grace Adams.

At the centre of the story is Daniel, a brilliant but unpredictable engineer who disappears into the void, and Emily, a fiercely intelligent documentary filmmaker with a complicated past.

As the narrative moves between past and present, the story unravels Daniel and Emily’s passionate, combustible relationship, his growing psychological instability, and Emily’s struggle to define herself amid talent, ambition and moral uncertainty.

FLYBY is a musical story about the magnetism of desire and the powerful gravity that draws two people together. It is a story about longing, connection, and the deep human need to feel truly — sometimes recklessly — alive.

Captioned:

• Thursday, 30th April, 7:00pm
  

Important Information

Age Restrictions

Performance Times

Now taking bookings for performances up until Sat 16th May 2026.

Show times for each day are below.

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Southwark Playhouse Borough Details

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Southwark Playhouse Borough Location

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