FLYBY releases production photos on opening night

Shehrazade Zafar-Arif 10 April, 2026, 11:53

New musical FLYBY had its opening night on Thursday 9th April, beginning its six week run at Southwark Playhouse Borough. First look production photos have been released.

Stuart Thompson, Poppy Gilbert, and Rupert Young in FLYBY. Photo by Alex Brenner.

About FLYBY

Originally developed in 2025 by the National Theatre, FLYBY is a heartwarming and romantic musical about the enduring power of love in the face of the vastness of space. Brilliant, unpredictable engineer Daniel steals a spacecraft and vanishes into space, leaving behind Emily, a fiercely intelligent documentary film-maker with whom he has a complicated past. Why did he leave? The answers are revealed through flashbacks and space logs, jumping between past and present as the story explores their passionate love story, Daniel's psychological unravelling, and Emily's struggle to define herself amid talent and ambition. What unfolds is a story about desire and the inescapable pull between two people who love each other.

The cast

Emily and Daniel are played by Poppy Gilbert (Lizzy in The Other Bennet Sister - BBC1, My Oxford Year - Netflix,) and Stuart Thompson (Spring Awakening - Almeida, Radiant Boy - Southwark Playhouse, SAS: Rogue Heroes - BBC) with 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.

The creative team

FLYBY is written by award-winning composer, lyricist, and writer Theo Jamieson (U.Me) and directed and co-created by Adam Lenson (Cable Street). Also on the creative team are on the creative team are set designer Libby Todd, lighting designer Ben Jacobs, sound designer Kelsh Buckman-Drage, costume designer Eleanor Bull and musical director Ben Kubiak.