The Starry Messenger, Wyndham's Theatre

A reflective new production coming to Wyndham’s Theatre is jam-packed with stars. Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Producers) is to make his West End debut alongside Elizabeth McGovern (taking a break from the much-awaited Downton Abbey film) in The Starry Messenger, a play by Oscar-winning writer Kenneth Lonergan.

Lonergan has re-cast Broderick from the original 2009 Broadway production of the show, which was praised for its beautifully written dialogue and Broderick’s layered, subtle characterisation. He is a man torn apart by fierce desire bubbling under a façade of anxious respectability. Broderick stars alongside McGovern, renowned for her reserved but gentle persona as the Countess of Grantham, who returns to the West End after ten years' absence.

Lonergan's screenplays have been repeatedly nominated for Academy Awards, due to their versatile dialogue and nuanced blurring of emotion. The Starry Messenger is a classic example of Lonergan's work and, in coming to London, the production gives us the chance to see Lonergan's masterful writing come to life on stage.

Set in a New York planetarium, the play follows Mark Williams (Broderick), a downtrodden, unhappily-married astronomer whose path through life is unexceptional and aimless. He finds new hope in a chance meeting with single mother Angela (McGovern), the two slowly beginning an affair.

This role offers nothing new for Broderick. Despite his scintillating performance as mischievous free spirit Ferris Bueller in the 1980s, Broderick's character in The Starry Messenger is the latest in a long line of other shy, middle-aged men dissatisfied with life. Broadway has witnessed Broderick as panic-prone Leo Bloom in The Producers and neat-freak Felix Ungar in a turgid remake of the 1960s play The Odd Couple.