Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird heading to West End

Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird is coming to London’s West End in May 2020 after opening on Broadway last December to rave reviews.

The show, directed by Bartlett Sher and nominated for nine Tony Awards, originally starred Jeff Daniels and now has Ed Harris as lead. Casting for the British version is yet to be announced.

It will open for previews at London’s Gielgud Theatre on 21st May with tickets on sale in December. The opening coincides with the 60th anniversary of Harper Lee’s novel.

Sorkin, famed for writing “The West Wing” and Mark Zuckerberg biopic “The Social Network”, was forced to change elements of his adaptation before it opened in the US after litigation from Lee’s estate. A lawsuit had claimed Sorkin’s more gritty portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch had departed from the original book’s spirit.

In a twist, theatres planning staging a much-performed Christopher Sergel adaptation of the play were threatened with legal action by producer Scott Rudin and the Lee estate earlier this year.

They were told they could not perform the play while the new Sorkin adaptation was being staged, citing a 1969 contract between Lee and the Dramatic Publishing Company. That contract stipulated no productions of the novel can be put on within 25 miles of big cities when a “first-class dramatic play” is in New York or on tour.