Stefan Bednarczyk, Mary Higgins, Iniki Mariano, Griffin Stevens, David Webber and Lachlan Werner make up the six-strong company of It’s a Wonderful Life!, Jessica Lazar’s Christmas staging of the Frank Capra classic as a live radio broadcast at Jermyn Street Theatre.
Stefan Bednarczyk, Mary Higgins, Iniki Mariano, Griffin Stevens, David Webber and Lachlan Werner are the six actors cast in It’s a Wonderful Life! at Jermyn Street Theatre, where Jessica Lazar directs Anthony E. Palermo’s radio-on-stage version of the 1946 film this Christmas. Previews begin on Thursday 19 November 2026, press night is Tuesday 24 November, and the run continues until Sunday 3 January 2027.
Palermo’s script turns the story into a live broadcast. The basement theatre becomes a 1940s radio studio, and the six performers divide the film’s whole cast of characters between them, creating the music and sound effects in front of the audience as they go. Bednarczyk, whose cabaret credits include Stefan Bednarczyk: King of Cabaret at the same address, also plays the piano live on stage.
The plot finds George Bailey on a bridge in upstate New York on a freezing Christmas Eve, ready to jump, until Clarence Odbody, a second-class angel who has yet to earn his wings, sets out to persuade him that his life has been worth living. Capra’s film was itself drawn from The Greatest Gift, the 1943 Christmas short story by Philip Van Doren Stern.
Lazar said: “Almost every actor in It’s A Wonderful Life plays twelve roles or more, and the skill it takes to do that well is rare, extraordinary, and a joy to watch. Building this ensemble was demanding but full of fun. I can’t wait to begin rehearsals.”
Stevens was in Dear England at the National Theatre and the Prince Edward Theatre, and his West End credits also include Leopoldstadt at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Webber’s stage work stretches from Barber Shop Chronicles and Small Island at the National Theatre to A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatre, alongside screen roles in Silent Witness and Death in Paradise. Higgins appeared in the National Theatre’s Hamlet, which also played the Brooklyn Academy of Music, while Mariano’s credits include the international tour of Murder on the Orient Express and Peter Pan at the National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic. Werner, a ventriloquist, clown and comedian as well as an actor, won a Golden Goose Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for Sleeper Hit.
Lazar returns to the theatre after directing Outlying Islands there. Her creative team is set designer Tina Torbey, costume designer Anna Lewis, lighting designer Cheng Keng and composer and sound designer Odinn Orn Hilmarsson, with Gabriele Uboldi producing. The production follows Kwame Owusu’s staging of Richard Eyre’s version of Ghosts, currently in performances at the venue.
Performances at Jermyn Street Theatre, 16B Jermyn Street, are Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm, with 3pm matinees on Tuesdays and Saturdays and two extra 3pm performances on Thursday 31 December 2026 and Sunday 3 January 2027. Tickets start at £20.
For more information, visit the official website.
